


The Second Principle of Magic

by QueenNeehola



Series: The Second Principle of Magic verse [1]
Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Awkward Crush, Canon Compliant, Developing Relationship, Dreamsharing, Elemental Magic, Fluff, Happy Ending, Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Mental Link, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Minor Violence, Mutual Pining, No Smut, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Spoilers, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2019-11-14 14:21:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18054155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenNeehola/pseuds/QueenNeehola
Summary: “I want to learn magic.”Cyrus rubbed his eyes, as if the fact that they were struggling to focus after such a long spell of reading had also somehow robbed him of his ability to hear correctly.  “I-I beg your pardon?”Therion huffed, pulling his scarf down so that this time Cyrus could definitely read his lips as he repeated, “I said, I want to learn magic.”  A pause.  “More specifically, I want you to teach me.”  Another pause.  “…Please.”





	1. Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **a note about the rating of this fic: initially it was rated teen and up, but there are a few lines that imply sexual goings-on in the last chapter and epilogue so i decided to raise the rating to mature just to be safe. there is no explicit sexual content in this fic, and i would argue it's safe for work, i just wanted to clarify.**

When Cyrus had his nose in a book – well, it was more like his whole head, really – he was truly deaf and blind to his surroundings.  His eyes flicking back and forth rapidly as he drank in the words on the page, he would sit, quite happily and unmoving, for hours if left to his own devices.  The group had all seen it before: Tressa often claimed to have conversations with him as he read, only for him to later have no memory of them ever occurring; H’aanit had draped her furs over him a few times, and Linde curled unnoticed next to him, when even the changing weather and cooling temperatures couldn’t move him from his chosen reading spot; and Alfyn had even once had to brew an emergency tincture when Cyrus had been so wrapped up in a tome he’d discovered during their travels that he had forgotten to eat for (at his best guess) two days, and had proceeded to ungracefully collapse in a pile of cloak and pages on the road.

So it was no surprise that he didn’t see Therion standing in front of him until the thief plucked his book from his hands.

Cyrus made a disgruntled noise at the sudden interruption, and as his now-bookless hands fell to his lap his gaze rose upwards to where Therion loomed over him, his face half-hidden in his scarf as usual.  His eyes, however, lacked their usual sharp edge when they slid away from Cyrus and off to the side.

He snapped the pilfered book shut and said, “I want to learn magic.”

Cyrus rubbed his eyes, as if the fact that they were struggling to focus after such a long spell of reading had also somehow robbed him of his ability to hear correctly.  “I-I beg your pardon?”

Therion huffed, pulling his scarf down so that this time Cyrus could definitely read his lips as he repeated, “I said, I want to learn magic.”  A pause.  “More specifically, I want you to teach me.”  Another pause.  “…Please.”

The _please_ was enough to throw Cyrus off by itself, never mind the absurdity of the request, but if Therion’s awkwardly stiff posture and apparent inability to look Cyrus in the eyes were anything to go by, he was serious.   _Well then_.

“What’s brought this on?” Cyrus asked, dusting off his clothes as he clambered to his feet.  His left leg had long since fallen asleep, so he assumed what he thought to be a casual stance, leaning against the trunk of the tree he’d been sitting under until he recovered the feeling in it.  (In actuality, the attempt at coolness looked more than a little ridiculous on him, but if Therion noticed, he was wise to stay silent for once.)

“We defeated Balogar…” Therion began.  Cyrus nodded.  “…And I decided I want to try out the Runelord…thing.”

Cyrus stopped nodding.  He stopped doing much of anything, really, aside from staring intently at Therion’s face in silence.

That the usually wordy professor was suddenly quiet unnerved Therion, and so he went on, “I’ve tried to get the runes to enchant my dagger but I just can’t get the hang of it.  It’s like they won’t… _stay_ , I almost get it but then I lose it and I can’t get it back…”

He was conscious that he was rambling, but he was also conscious that Cyrus was still ogling holes into him.

“So I just thought…maybe…you could show me the ropes…?”  He hated the way it rose unbidden into a question at the end – his own voice, betraying his hesitance!  And Cyrus was still not saying anything, and that was the _worst_ part.  He was usually so enthusiastic when anyone asked him _anything_ , so eager to impart even a smidgen of his knowledge to anyone who was willing to listen for a few minutes, so the fact that he was silent now of all times made Therion fidget with unwelcome nerves—

They happened to lock eyes, and Therion realised in an instant that Cyrus hadn’t remained wordless out of some sense of judgement or reluctance, but because he was _awestruck_.  His eyes were _shining_ , his lips curved upwards in a wobbly kind of smile that Therion thought was a tad too emotional given the fairly insignificant circumstances.

Cyrus chose that moment to spring forward, catching even the careful thief off-guard and grasping his hands, crushing his fingers against the book as he shook Therion’s hands vigorously.

“Of course!” he agreed fervently, and then again, “Of course!  I would be _delighted_ to!  I never thought you one to take an interest in the arcane arts, but I’m so pleased to be proven wrong!  You are a perfect fit to take up the mantle of Runelord, if I do say so myself!”  He dropped Therion’s hands and reclaimed his book in one swift movement that could have put Therion himself to shame, and turned on his heel with a dramatic swish of his cloak, looking back over his shoulder even as he started back towards town.  “Meet me back here at dusk for your first lesson!”

As Cyrus disappeared among the groups of people bustling in the streets, Therion was left standing on the outskirts, his hands uncomfortably warm where Cyrus had held them, wishing he had asked Ophilia instead.

* * *

True to his word, when Therion slunk out of town that evening and towards the place they’d agreed to meet, Cyrus was already waiting.  In the fading light, his silhouette was almost indistinguishable from the trunk of the tree he was again leaning against, and it was only Therion’s trained eyesight that let him pick him out.  On closer inspection, there were a few books piled by his feet (of course) along with a bundle of sticks, as though he’d been planning on making a fire but hadn’t gotten further than collecting the materials.  The scholar himself was standing still and pensive, staring into space with his arms folded over his chest.  It would have been obvious even if Therion hadn’t been travelling with him for so long that Cyrus was thinking, his brain running calculations and theories, the cogs whirring with the effort of keeping up with a hundred ideas at once.  It was fascinating to Therion how his features, which had been so animated with emotion earlier that day, were now pencilled into sharp concentration.  The looks couldn’t be more different, and yet they were somehow equally at home on Cyrus’s face.

Therion’s shoes scuffed the ground and Cyrus looked up at the noise, his eyebrows raised and a smile newly forming as he saw who his interrupter was, and that looked natural on him, too.

“Therion!” he exclaimed, throwing out his arms.  For a horrifying moment Therion feared Cyrus was going to grab for his hands again, so he drew them under his poncho.  But the touch never came, and Cyrus just brought his hands together in front of his chest in a single clap, as if signalling the start of the lesson.  “Are you ready to begin?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful!”  Cyrus gestured grandly towards the hastily assembled bundle of sticks on the ground.  “Your first task is to light a fire.”

Therion quirked on eyebrow.  That seemed easy enough; he was no stranger to sleeping outdoors—

“With magic, of course,” Cyrus added.

 _Ah_.  There it was.  Therion looked at Cyrus, then looked away again when his innocently self-satisfied grin was too much to bear.  Not deigning to answer him, Therion crouched by the stick-pile and extended a hand, summoning his Wildfire technique to set it alight.  In a few moments, a small fire crackled between the two men.

“Good,” Cyrus said, bending to pick up one of the books at his feet.  “I suppose fire would be the element to begin with, since you seem to have some affinity for it already.”

“More like it’s all I can do.”  He hadn’t meant it to sound as self-deprecating as it came out, but Therion still remembered the months he had spent a few years prior pursuing scraps of magic with nought to teach him but the slurred words of a tavern regular and his own determination.  He had been so proud when he’d managed to conjure a few sparks from his fingertips.  But next to Cyrus’s grasp of the elements it looked about as impressive as a parlour trick.

“Now, now, everyone has to start somewhere.”  Cyrus was too busy flicking through the pages to look up, but his voice was oddly soft and lacking his usual accidental condescension.  It was probably the fact that it was getting dark – Therion knew the importance of being quiet during jobs at night.  There’s a hush that settles over places when the sun goes down, and people naturally muffle themselves too, unwilling to disturb it.  It seemed that even Cyrus, usually so blissfully oblivious to societal customs, wasn't immune to it.

When Cyrus did meet Therion’s eyes, the fire had painted shadows across the professor’s face, stencilling in sharp cheekbones and dipping into dimples at the corners of his mouth that Therion had never noticed before.  He averted his gaze to the flames instead, their brightness burning the image out of his eyes.

“Ah, here we are,” Cyrus announced, more to himself than to Therion, and immediately knelt next to where Therion was still hunkered by the fire, angling the book so they could both see.  Therion instinctively shuffled away a few inches, sinking down onto his knees as well as he craned to see what Cyrus was pointing out.  Unfamiliar characters lined the page, their illustrations marked with notes in the common language; some of it in what Therion recognised as Cyrus’s own scrawl.  Clearly he was one for scribbling in his own personal tomes.  “These are fire runes.  They seem simpler than the one Balogar gave us knowledge of, so perhaps they’d be more suitable for beginners.”

A pang of shame hotter than the firelight on his face hit Therion straight in the chest.  Cyrus was savagely blunt sometimes, even though he meant no harm by his words.  Knowing that, and also knowing Cyrus was doing him a kindness by agreeing to instruct him in magic, Therion bit back a cutting reply and instead wordlessly unsheathed his dagger.  He held it up and traced one of the runes from Cyrus’s book as best he could on the flat of the blade.  It was clumsy and imperfect, but for a moment it glowed orange against the steel as Therion finished writing, and he felt Cyrus tense with anticipation next to him…and then the light faded, and the dagger remained unenchanted, and Therion also felt Cyrus deflate.

He looked to his teacher, accusatory.  “See?”

Cyrus raised a hand to his chin in a perfect caricature of pondering.  He remained that way for a few moments, his expression falling seamlessly back into one of focus, and Therion swore he almost saw the light go on over his head as he breathed a quiet, “Let’s try this instead.”

“Let’s try what?” Therion repeated, but received no answer aside from Cyrus putting his book down and shifting closer to Therion.  That was unnerving.  “Let’s try _what_?”

But Cyrus was already behind Therion, pressing his chest to the thief’s back as he insistently sought out Therion’s hands and covered them with his own, directing Therion’s grip and touch.  In their joined left hands they held Therion’s dagger; with the right, Cyrus minutely adjusted Therion’s fingers, squeezing them between his.  Too shocked at the sudden and intense invasion of his personal space, Therion found he couldn’t do much but let Cyrus get on with it.

And then, Cyrus spoke.

“Focus,” he said, voice _directly next to Therion’s ear_ : a soft huff of breath so close it made the hairs on the back of Therion’s neck stand up all at once.  “Feel the fire’s heat.  Try to channel the same energy you use in your Wildfire technique when writing the rune.  Keep the thought in your mind, and the magic should flow naturally.  I’ll assist you a little.”

Cyrus leaned closer as he moved their hands together, both as one drawing the rune onto the dagger.  This time it glowed much brighter, and Therion struggled to hold onto what Cyrus had told him only moments before – but never mind feeling the heat of the fire, all he could feel was the heat of Cyrus flush against his back, the heat of Cyrus’s hands firmly holding his own in place, the heat of Cyrus breathing against his cheek, the heat the heat the _heat_ —

The fire roared a foot higher in front of them just as the dagger in Therion’s hand blazed scarlet, the searing metal burning his skin until he yelped and dropped it, ripping himself out of Cyrus’s hold and putting a few feet of distance between them at the same time.  He was breathing heavily, half from the unfamiliar, dizzying feeling of magic that he had just channelled, and half from…something else entirely.  He hesitantly raised his eyes to meet Cyrus’s, and found that the professor looked…impressed.  Impressed, and a bit taken aback.

“Well,” Cyrus said, pushing some hair back out of his face but otherwise looking unfairly unruffled, “perhaps I put a little too much power into that one.  But most of that came from you, Therion!  It was marvellous!  Who knew you had so much hidden potential?  Well, I had suspected – your fingers are so deft and delicate, they’re perfect for drawing runes—”

Cyrus continued to rave about Therion’s newly discovered skills, his grandiose gesturing evidence enough that whatever had just occurred between them hadn’t affected him nearly as much—if at all—as it had Therion.  Feeling oddly put out, Therion got to his feet, ignoring the tingling in his legs and Cyrus’s talk of his _delicate fingers_.

“We’re done for tonight,” he muttered gruffly, but it was enough to cut Cyrus off.

“Oh, already?”  He sounded genuinely upset, but Therion refused to look at him even as he scrambled to stand again and made a show of adjusting his clothes.  “Will you join me again tomorrow for another try?  I think you’ll really take to it with a few more lessons!”

Despite his insistence in looking away, Therion once more found his eyes drawn back towards Cyrus’s face.  It was a mistake, he knew immediately—with the childlike glimmer of excitement in Cyrus’s eyes and the fire drawing rosiness into his cheeks, Therion instantly realised he wouldn’t be able to say no.

“…Sure,” he mumbled, hiding behind his scarf but truthfully wanting to rip it away from him, along with his poncho.  He felt unbearably warm, and warmer still when Cyrus lit up brighter than the firelight at his answer.

He really should have just asked Ophilia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i got the runelord job in my game and immediately put it on therion because i love him and my third eye opened and this idea came to me because i love the trope of "character A teaches character B how to wield a weapon/magic/etc. by getting real close and adjusting their stance/posture"
> 
> is that how the runelord's powers work? who knows  
> does the thief's wildfire skill count as magic? also who knows  
> do i care? not in the slightest  
> is cytheri good? YES
> 
> catch me on twitter @QueenNeehola !
> 
>  
> 
> [also, the incredible gurutze_art on twitter drew some fanart of a scene from this chapter, please check it out!](https://twitter.com/gurutze_art/status/1105919452615507969)


	2. Ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m fine,” he said, getting the gist of Cyrus’s enquiry. “I was just,” he looked at his hands, “practising magic.”  
>  _That_ got Cyrus’s attention. He took a step closer. Therion noticed how his body instantly tensed as he did so, taut with the urge to engage but still remembering to hold himself back, to respect Therion’s personal space.  
> “You really are dedicated to the craft,” he half-laughed, and then asked, eyes shining with such hopeful intensity that Therion couldn’t look directly at him, “Would you care for another lesson? These climes are perfect for ice magic.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BY POPULAR DEMAND (it was me. i demanded it of myself) IT'S NOW A SERIES. JOIN US AS THERION LEARNS EVERY ELEMENT AND DEFINITELY DOESN'T FALL IN LOVE WITH CYRUS ALONG THE WAY

With the plan being to stay in town for a few more days before moving on, Therion didn't have much choice but to continue taking magic lessons with Cyrus.  Not that he would have skipped out on them on the road either, since he'd already said he'd keep at it. He was nothing if not a thief of his word.

It was awkward, though.  After that first incident - and Therion's heart still thumped uncomfortably against his ribs whenever he thought about it, like it was trying to escape - he was hesitant to let Cyrus near him again, a fact that seemed to cause the scholar some anguish.  He was probably just not used to reigning in his tactile nature, Therion thought, because he was beginning to notice just how physically expressive Cyrus was: a hand on Olberic's shoulder as they spoke, a praising pat on the head for Tressa, and even Linde seemed to tolerate his excessive scratches behind her ears.  Though quite why Therion had started paying attention to where Cyrus's hands were at all times was beyond him, but as long as they weren't anywhere near Therion himself he supposed it was fine.

But still, Cyrus looked genuinely hurt when Therion flinched away from his touch the next night, and Therion finally found an expression that didn't suit the scholar - eyebrows upturned, confusion replacing the usual understanding in his face, like he'd found one question he didn't know the answer to.  It lasted but a moment, and then Cyrus smiled, but it was a pale imitation of the many he'd shown his comrades before. Therion knew in an instant it wasn't real. He was a connoisseur of fakery, after all.

“Apologies,” Cyrus said, clearing his throat and looking off into the fire that he'd had Therion light again.  “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“It's fine,” Therion lied, because there was nothing fine about Cyrus's expression, but Cyrus seemed to brighten a little at the reassurance nonetheless.  He opened his tome and slipped into his classroom persona as he started the lesson.

He stayed noticeably far from Therion that night, directing from a distance.  A few times he did reach out, fingers skimming the air in Therion’s direction, but then he’d catch himself and draw his hand back to fiddle with a page of his book instead.  Therion noticed every time it happened, but it was hard to pay attention to it with Cyrus's usual brand of praise being rained down upon him every time he managed to grasp the magic for a little longer.  With every utterance of “you’re doing well,” or “marvellous, Therion,” the fire seemed to pop and hiss almost like it was talking, echoing Cyrus’s words as Therion etched the flame into his dagger.

When they finished for the night, Therion’s palms were red with heat, sweat trickling down his neck.  Still unused to such focused intensity of magic, he felt exhausted down to his very core. Cyrus beamed and launched into another spiel about Therion’s natural affinity for working with runes, but Therion didn’t hear any of it, already thinking about his bed at the inn.  In his tired state he didn’t even register the hand on his arm until it was already gone, and when he had the presence of mind to look back, Cyrus had turned away and begun busying himself with extinguishing their fire.

* * *

Their lessons continued without much incident but not without the pervasive awkwardness of Cyrus’s newfound determination to not get within a certain radius of Therion.  They settled into this new routine nonetheless, and Therion found himself practising alone just as often as with Cyrus. The magic was coming easier, just like Cyrus had said it would: he could trace the runes from memory now, and even the complex fire rune Balogar gifted him started to brand itself onto his blade with ease.  It still took concentration though, and Therion found that having an anchor to focus on - a feeling, a memory, a thought - made the energy flow more stably.

The memory of that first night's practice with Cyrus was the one he clung to most.  It was the one that worked the best and most consistently, the one that made his fire burn hotter and brighter, searing the flesh of any beast that came in contact with his dagger.  He thought of the little campfire blazing into the night sky and felt the heat of it on his skin; of the warm weight of Cyrus against his back, the hands covering his own, and his dagger glowed bright in his grip and his pulse leapt as he sliced through the monster that stood before him, a fiery reckoning following the arc of his blade a millisecond later.  Afterwards, as always, his breath came heavy, warmth and adrenaline still humming in his bloodstream even as the rune faded away, its job done.

Whenever he turned back to face his companions after a fight, it was Cyrus he saw first, hanging back behind the others like he still didn’t want to get too close even without the danger of breaking Therion’s focus.  This time too, when he finally did approach, feet carrying him closer with that same elegant purpose he always moved with, he stopped just out of arm’s reach, offering a smile and a few complimentary words and nothing else.  Alfyn slapped Therion on the back, singing his praises, and Primrose silently nudged him with an approving nod, but their touches felt cold to him.

* * *

Nothing was quite as cold as the Frostlands though, a fact that Therion was reluctantly reminded of when the party ventured back to Flamesgrace at Ophilia’s request to visit Lianna.  By the time they arrived it was sundown, and Ophilia headed off to spend the night with her sister while the rest of the group decided to escape the chill in the bustle of the tavern.  Therion didn’t like the cold either, but he didn’t feel like company tonight, nor did he want to just hole up in the inn and wait to be told when they were leaving. Huddling under his poncho, he forced himself out into the biting air instead, figuring a walk was as good an idea as any.

Trusting his feet to take him somewhere decent, Therion eventually found himself at the summit of the hill overlooking Flamesgrace.  He looked down at the cathedral, its impressive architecture illuminated by torchlight, and at the snow on the rooftops glittering under the full moon, but he didn’t feel any better—and he realised for the first time that he had been _wanting_ to feel better, because there had been an oddly sour mood hanging over him for a while.  It was probably the cold, he thought.  Up here it felt even colder, his breath coming out in hot puffs from between his lips.  He thought about trying to summon some fire to warm himself up, even just to enchant his dagger and hold it close like a heat pack, but he found that no matter how many times he tried he couldn’t hold onto the right feeling, couldn’t channel the energy through his chilled body.  His fingers already felt stiff and uncooperative from the cold, which meant his efforts to trace the rune came out shaky and messy, and it faded uselessly as quick as he drew it.  He tutted and put his dagger away, feeling even worse.  Perhaps a few drinks in the tavern would improve his mood after all.  

When he turned, Cyrus was standing there, and Therion almost fell off the damn hill.

Cyrus started at being noticed, his eyes going wide for a moment, but he seemed to recover his usual poise fairly quickly.  Therion, on the other hand, was thoroughly thrown for a loop. Gods, how had he not heard Cyrus coming? The man was hardly a master of stealth, with those silly floaty clothes he always wore!  Had Therion really been so lost in his own head that he’d foregone the basic principles of his trade? Or - worse - _had_ he heard the footsteps, subconsciously recognised the sound as Cyrus’s shoes, and therefore registered his approach as safe?  The very thought made him cringe.

“...Therion?” Cyrus was saying, and Therion realised too late he’d been asked a question.  When he didn’t answer, Cyrus continued, “I noticed you weren’t with the others at the tavern, so I thought to come and find you.”

 _I noticed_.   _I thought_.  Therion thought it strange for Cyrus to be so concerned with the whereabouts of the one member of their group who was statistically more likely to disappear on his own than any of the others, but he felt something like pins and needles creep into his skin at Cyrus’s words; a small prickle of feeling where the cold air had frozen him into numbness.

“I’m fine,” he said, getting the gist of Cyrus’s enquiry.  “I was just,” he looked at his hands, “practising magic.”

 _That_ got Cyrus’s attention.  He took a step closer. Therion noticed how his body tensed a second later, taut with the urge to engage but still remembering to hold himself back, to respect Therion’s personal space.

“You really are dedicated to the craft,” he half-laughed, and then asked, eyes shining with such hopeful intensity that Therion couldn’t look directly at him, “Would you care for another lesson?  These climes are perfect for ice magic.”

A shudder ran through Therion at the thought of prolonging his exposure to the cold even longer, but the idea of learning another rune appealed to him, niggling brightly at the corner of his bad mood.  He had been enjoying his newfound mastery over the fire rune - even if it wouldn’t come to him just now, when he wanted it to - yet his lessons with Cyrus had taken a back seat since the group had begun their journey through the Frostlands, everyone feeling too cold and exhausted to expend any energy they didn’t absolutely need to.

“Oh, but I didn’t bring my books,” Cyrus continued, half-turning and glancing dejectedly down towards the town.

Therion blurted out, “It’s fine.”  Cyrus looked back at him, eyebrows raised in a silent question.  “I remember the rune. The one Balogar taught us. I memorised them all.”  His own boldness surprised him, as did his sudden unwillingness to let Cyrus walk away now that he was here.  It was the closest he’d been to Therion in days. It was the warmest Therion had felt in just as long. “Teach me.”

“But Balogar’s runes are very complex...wouldn’t you rather—”

“I can do it.”

Cyrus looked at Therion with the scrutinising eye he usually turned on others to deduce their intentions.  It was distinctly uncomfortable being examined so closely, but Therion held his ground. Eventually, Cyrus smiled, and the tingling feeling across Therion’s skin got stronger.

“Very well then,” Cyrus said.  “Let’s begin.”

 

Cyrus melted a space through the snow with his flames for them to settle into (Therion had offered to do it, but Cyrus had declined, citing how difficult it could be to summon fire magic in such cold temperatures, and advising Therion to save his energy).  The ground was packed hard and still cold even underneath all the snow, but the two ignored the damp chill creeping into their clothing as they sat opposite one another, close enough that their knees bumped.

“Ah, sorry,” Cyrus said automatically.  He made to shift away, but he found that the very circle he’d thawed in the ground wasn’t big enough to allow him to get any further without instead sitting among wet snow.  He hesitated, timidly meeting Therion’s eyes.

Therion clicked his tongue and knocked his knee to Cyrus’s again, defiant, and again said, “It’s fine.”  And this time it _was_ fine, surprising Therion as much as it did Cyrus.  The tingling Therion had felt was gone altogether now, replaced instead by a content warmth, making the freezing night temperature more bearable.

 

“Ice magic can be difficult to learn, and even harder to master,” Cyrus started, slipping easily into his _Professor Albright_ voice.  “It involves channeling a sensation most people don’t like - namely, the cold.”  Cyrus gestured to the area around them, and Therion followed the sweeping of his hands, eyeing the snow glistening under the moonlight like crushed diamonds.  He looked back to Cyrus, tuning out his lecture, instead noticing the way the wan light made him look paler than normal, his skin glowing white like it was reflecting the wintry landscape the way the moon reflected the sun.  How odd, Therion thought absently, examining the length of Cyrus’s eyelashes, since Cyrus usually shone _like_ the sun with how earnest and animated he was, always so eager to teach and learn alike.

“...dangerous,” Cyrus was saying, the end of another sentence Therion didn’t hear.  “I personally experienced horrendously chapped and broken skin on my hands, though I’ve heard tales of it even causing frostbite in extreme cases.  Not to worry, though,” and he was smiling again, voice taking on a softer edge as he slipped from _Professor_ back to just _Cyrus_ , “I’ll look after you.”

Therion’s heart started trying to break free of his chest again.

* * *

After half an hour, Therion had gotten precisely nowhere, and he was starting to get fed up.

“I can’t do it,” he growled, throwing his dagger down between them and folding his arms beneath his poncho - a little childish, yes, but he was _trying_ and nothing was _happening_ and it was getting harder and harder to keep writing out the rune with how numb his fingers were.

Cyrus chuckled, and that annoyed Therion more.  “Now, now. I believe that’s directly in opposition to what you told me before.  Why don’t you try once more?”

Therion almost snapped _n_ _o_ , he didn’t _want_ to, but Cyrus’s voice was encouraging, coaxing him into complacency, and their knees were still touching, sharing just enough warmth with Therion that he—

His head snapped up.   _Warmth_.  That was it.  He hadn’t been able to channel his fire magic at all before Cyrus had shown up, but since then he had felt the familiar energy of it waiting in the corner of his mind, wanting to be drawn out; the memory of Cyrus’s body sliding against him a constant, background presence.  With every brush of their knees, another spark flickered somewhere inside Therion, the simmering cinders building and threatening to ignite.

“Stop touching me,” Therion said, and the way it came out like a command had Cyrus flinching, folding his knees up to his chest in a hurry.  He looked at Therion with that awful, confused expression again, and a sharp, uncharacteristic pang of guilt had Therion scrambling to explain, “I think—I don’t think I can do it if you’re—if someone’s—touching me.  It’s too…” He almost said _warm_ , but it sounded silly even in his own head and so he just trailed off, shaking his head to clear it back to a blank focus.

He picked up his dagger with frozen fingers and slid backwards in one fluid movement, shoving himself gracelessly into the waiting snow outside of Cyrus’s thawed circle.  The freezing dampness hit him instantly and he couldn’t smother the yelp that came out of him, nor stop the way his joints seemed to lock up immediately. Still, he grit his teeth and forced his arms to move, to hold his dagger in front of him, to trace Balogar’s ice rune with a shaking finger.  He closed his eyes, focusing on the chill seeping into every inch of him, boring its way down into his bones.

 _Cold,_ he thought, _It’s cold.  It’s so cold!  This is what you wanted, right?  Well hurry up and get to work before I freeze to death!_

There came a long moment of silence where Therion could only hear the chattering of his own teeth, and he started to feel stupid, and tired, and even _colder—_

Cyrus gave a small gasp, and Therion opened his eyes.  The rune had imprinted itself onto his dagger, putting out a soft blue light and forming tiny ice crystals along the sharp edge of the blade.  The cold seemed to intensify too, creeping up the hand he held the weapon in, into his arm, then throughout his whole body, and with the initial shock of plunging himself into the snow wearing off and the intense chill beginning to set in, Therion started to shiver.  The tremors wracked his body in uncontrollable waves, but he couldn’t look away from his enchanted dagger. He’d done it...he’d done it!  He smiled, or thought he did, but as cold as he felt he was sure his mouth had frozen into a grimace of concentration.  Gods, he _was_ cold—Cyrus had said something about frostbite—how weird, it was getting harder to breathe, like the air was freezing into solid lumps, sticking in his throat—

“That’s enough, Therion,” Cyrus said, and something settled across Therion’s shoulders, and he choked.  Concentration broken, warmth flooded back into him; his frozen lungs thawed and he was sent into a sudden coughing fit.  He dropped his dagger, barely registering the clatter of it against the ground as he hacked, his eyes watering with hot tears. He felt small circles being rubbed into his back, easing his spasms of coughing, and as he finally began to calm he saw how the ground around him had re-frozen where Cyrus had thawed it with his magic.

Scrubbing a cold hand across his face, Therion craned his neck to look at Cyrus, because it was Cyrus who was rubbing his back, Cyrus who had moved to squat in the snow next to him, Cyrus whose body heat was searing through every inch of his skin, softening the shivers, Cyrus who was looking at him with a complicated expression, eyes full of worry but his lips curled up in a small smile.

“I’m impressed,” Cyrus said, taking his hand away from Therion’s back to fuss at the fabric he had laid over Therion’s shoulders—his cloak, Therion now noticed.  “I’ve rarely seen anyone channel ice magic with such success—and such intensity—on their first attempt. Although, perhaps a little  _too_ much intensity, hm?  You almost froze yourself solid.”  Cyrus’s voice was soft with something Therion had never heard from him before and that he couldn't put a name to, but he thought he liked it...or perhaps it was just hypothermia setting in.

Therion stumbled when he tried to stand, his legs protesting from so much time spent kneeling in the cold, and he found himself immediately pressed to Cyrus’s side with an arm around his middle to keep him steady as they started slowly back towards town.  He felt tired and heavy, his feet dragging with every step, his skin alight with fire and ice at the same time, the feeling not unlike plunging cold hands into hot water. He _didn’t_ feel horrified at the amount Cyrus had just touched him in the last five minutes, which shocked him more than anything else—but the explanation was surely that he was cold, and Cyrus was warm, and it was a normal human reaction to seek out warmth.  “I’ll look after you,” Cyrus had said, and he was certainly doing that now: his cloak pulled tight around Therion’s thin shoulders, his arm secure around Therion’s waist, his voice never ceasing murmuring quiet words of comfort and praise as he patiently led his shivering companion down the hill, step by painstaking step.

* * *

Therion didn’t remember getting back to the inn, half-passed out against Cyrus as he was, so he didn’t remember the concern of the others flocking around him when Cyrus fetched them from the tavern; he didn’t remember Cyrus handing him off to Alfyn and Olberic, asking them almost shyly to put him in a fresh set of clothes; and he didn’t remember his dagger and a small bottle of warming lotion, commissioned straight from Alfyn, being placed gently at his bedside, a familiar cloak being arranged over his sleeping frame, or the sheets being tucked in around him.  

When he awoke the next morning, Therion didn’t remember very much at all except a hazy outline of the evening and an uncomfortable chill that made him curl further into the bed.  He almost thought it might have all been a dream, except that he could feel the rawness at the back of his throat as he yawned that indicated an oncoming cold, and as he sat up, Cyrus’s cloak slid from his shoulders and into his lap.  He looked at it for a moment, bleary-eyed, and then he picked it up and put it on again. It was still warm.

(When he realised what he’d done, he hurled it across the room, mortified at himself.  And then he sneezed.

He decided on the spot that he hated ice magic.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "hey NeeNee what's the timeline for this fic"  
> me: VAGUE SHRUGGING
> 
> hit me up on twitter: @QueenNeehola!


	3. Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cyrus was in front of him, stepping yet again into his personal space like it belonged to him just as much, and he was taking Therion’s hand, and he was pressing it to his chest, and Therion hadn’t meant to hold his breath this time but there it was anyway, trapped in his throat, and all he could look at was Cyrus’s hand on top of his hand on top of Cyrus’s chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay first of all i have to thank fellow cytheri enthusiast, incredibly talented writer and cool person in general [sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarExo) for giving me like at least 70% of the idea for this chapter.....and for giving me way too many cytheri ideas in general.
> 
> also, enjoy the one line about alfyn/zeph because if you're sleeping on that ship you are a fool. they are married.

Therion couldn't use the ice rune.

Relegated to the back line while he got over his cold, he was firmly forbidden by Cyrus (in the professor's unusually stern lecturing voice) from using any ice magic unsupervised.  Instead, he found himself watching Cyrus in battle more and more, intent on trying to pick up some tips from him. The scholar was never more elegant than in the midst of a fight, his sleeves and cloak billowing as he cast his arm out to carry the magic from his books through his skin, chanting in the old tongues with practised diction.  He truly had a masterful grasp of the elements, even picking up sorcery he hadn't used before with ease.  Countless beasts and bandits fell before his searing flames, the electricity crackling from his fingertips and the near cyclones he summoned that almost tore the pages straight from his precious tomes with their intensity.  Cyrus also didn't seem to have the same problem with ice magic that Therion did; he would call out his incantation and his enemies would freeze and shatter grotesquely, but Cyrus himself would remain entirely unaffected, brushing the dust off his clothes afterwards like for all the world he hadn't just channelled the power of unbelievably biting cold through his own body.

But even after Therion recovered, he found that whatever grasp he'd had over ice during that one night had gone, slipped away from him like it had melted through his very fingers.  He could still still summon fire with relative ease, but whenever he tried to trace the ice rune onto his dagger, to remember the blistering cold and turn it upon his enemies, it was like a wall descended to block it off from him.  Even Cyrus's teaching was getting him nowhere, and when he practised alone he found he couldn't handle the memory of the cold at all, reaching every time for his quickly emptying bottle of warming lotion.

He'd assumed it was a minor blip, something he could push through with enough persistence, but when he found himself standing defenceless in the middle of battle with a uselessly unenchanted dagger and claws and teeth coming for him, when Olberic shoved in front to take the blow in his stead and Cyrus blew past with a shout of _Glacies Claudere_ , imprisoning the beast in an icy tomb, Therion knew that maybe he'd have to address his problem.

* * *

“Cyrus,” he began one morning as they were walking, worrying the edge of his poncho as he fell into step beside his magic teacher.  Having left the Frostlands and their damnably cold temperatures behind, the group was heading for warmer climes to Clearbrook because Alfyn - and Therion could quote, verbatim - “missed Zeph.”  (Honestly, he was so transparent he should have been made of glass.) Currently, they were somewhere in the Woodlands, relying mostly on H’aanit’s tracking and knowledge of her homeland to lead them in the right direction.  Cyrus looked at Therion, bright with curiosity, and Therion sank into his scarf. “How do you...do magic like that?”

Cyrus blinked.  “I thought we were a little further on in our lessons than that, Therion.”

“That’s not what I meant!”  A flush rose to Therion’s face when Cyrus just grinned in response, like he had known exactly what Therion meant, like he was teasing.  That alone was unexpected enough that Therion looked away, finding his feet suddenly more interesting than the fact that Cyrus seemed to have developed a sense of humour.  “I meant, how do you not let it affect you? I use fire, I get hot, I use ice, I get cold—I _can’t_ use ice because I don’t _want_ to get cold, I guess.  It’s like there are these side effects.  But I look at you, and—” And Therion did look at Cyrus again, a habit by now, finding his expression pensive once more.  “You don’t seem to get any of that.”

“Well, that is true,” Cyrus agreed, “but if anything, it’s through years of practice.  You are still a relative beginner, after all.” The epithet clung to Therion’s pride as heavy as the fool’s bangle on his wrist and he frowned, but Cyrus continued, unnoticing.  “And I believe I did say I suffered with ice burns when I first began my study of the element. It’s notoriously tricky to grasp for many mages, even more so than some of the more volatile elements—”  Cyrus paused entirely, forgetting to even move his feet for a few seconds, making Therion stumble to a halt alongside him. He muttered, “Perhaps…” and Therion recognised the hushed tone he used when talking to himself, the expression of slow epiphany spreading across his features.

“Perhaps what?”

Cyrus’s eyes flicked to his face, glittering with ideas, and Therion felt his heartbeat pick up (but only ever so slightly, so he was considering that a victory).

The excited rush of sharing knowledge was evident in Cyrus's voice as he began, “Many - myself included - have long since theorised there is more than one way to learn magic.”  He started walking again as he launched into his monologue, pace picking up, and Therion scurried after him automatically. “To put it in layman’s terms: there’s thinking, and then there’s feeling.  I fall very much into the former category. My magic comes from a place of knowledge, of learning; applying the same practised fundamentals every time. As a result I have a variety of elements at my disposal, but it’s all very…”  He grasped at air for the right word, fingers curling around it as he announced decisively, “Static. It rarely changes in terms of power, of—of intensity. Yours, on the other hand…” Cyrus beamed as he looked at Therion, glowing with all the vividness of the light breaking through the canopy above them.  “I suspect your magic is much more closely linked to your emotional state and the physical factors which can affect it. It can make it that much more powerful, but also that much more difficult to control. Although I would argue that certain elements, such as wind and lightning, are more suited to this type of magic, since it's simpler to direct their power outwards and away from one's self. But ice, for example, is more nuanced and can be easily internalised.  Therefore, it can be dangerous for the caster when not kept under strict control.” Therion looked at his hands. Cyrus's eyes followed. “I trust you are taking proper care of yourself in that regard.”

Therion immediately withdrew his hands, hiding them under his poncho.  He didn't have anything to hide - he _was_ making sure he didn't push himself too hard, not that he was getting anywhere anyway - but having Cyrus examine him with that look of gentle concern, fingers twitching like he wanted to take Therion's hands into his own to really make sure, had him shrinking into himself.

“Of course,” he replied curtly.

Cyrus offered a small smile.  “Excellent.

“But the point I was trying to make was,” he continued, for once aware of the tangent he had allowed himself to go on, “that I believe one of those other elements—wind or lightning—may be better suited to you rather than ice.  Magic isn't uniform, after all. Even fire, though commonly wielded among mages, reacts very differently to you than it does me.” And that was true: Therion's flames always burned hottest in the midst of difficult battles, like they reacted to his desperation, where Cyrus's were the same beautifully crafted pillars of blazing heat every time.  “And I wager you are far more comfortable with the memories or feelings that you call upon to help you use your fire rune than for your ice rune, and since your emotional and physical responses to your magic are linked, it's nigh impossible for you to wield ice effectively at the moment.”

That was true as well.  When trying to summon ice to him, Therion couldn't help but remember how he'd felt atop the hill in Flamesgrace, how cold and frustrated he'd been, how he'd near enough passed out afterwards.  He didn't like the cold to start with, and he hated the memory of that particular cold even more. Not only that, it made him remember many times spent huddled in on himself on various street corners, frozen and hungry and young, not yet practised enough at thieving to sustain himself.

And Cyrus was also correct that fire came more readily to Therion because he had a more pleasant memory to draw on to summon it.  (Although he would never admit that it was Cyrus himself at the root of it, nor that it was _pleasant_ at all.)

Therion must have been frowning again, because the next thing he felt was Cyrus inviting himself to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Yours is no less magic than mine is, just a different type,” Cyrus said, completely misunderstanding Therion's thoughts.  (But the sentiment was nice.)  “Everyone learns in a different way - trust me, I know from experience. Besides, I think your magic is _wonderful_ , Therion!  It is wholly intuitive in a way that I could never hope to emulate; true mastery of it relies on an intimate knowledge of one's own self—”

Therion shrugged away from Cyrus.  He didn't want to hear any more about how _wonderful_ Cyrus thought his _intimate knowledge_ was.

Cyrus cleared his throat.  “So, what do you say to trying your hand at the wind rune today?”

Therion whirled on him instantly.  He could feel his eyes going wide and a smile pulling at his lips, and in any other situation he would have been embarrassed at such a childlike involuntary response, but his nerves began to hum with the anticipation of feeling magic run through him again, of moulding the raw power into something he could channel and wield, and he found he didn’t really care.  Besides, his expression seemed mirrored in Cyrus’s face too, all alight with the usual obvious giddiness he wore when it came to teaching. He really was meant for a career in it, with how much he so clearly loved watching people learn and grow. Therion wondered if that was how Cyrus felt about seeing him learn magic, but that made a strange sensation twist in his gut, so he stopped wondering just as quickly.

* * *

For once, it wasn’t the dead of night when Cyrus and Therion met up for their magic lesson.  The group had decided on H’aanit’s word to stop and rest for the night, and it was while the others were preparing camp that the two men slipped away into a small clearing far enough away to practise in peace, but not so far that they would be in danger of becoming lost or being attacked.

So it was by dusklight that they stood opposite each other this time.  Therion waited with surprising patience as Cyrus paced, gesturing in various directions as he talked at length, yet again, about some aspect of magic theory that Therion was only half listening to.  With the low sun at his back, carving him into silhouette even through the dense trees, Cyrus’s long stretch of a shadow followed at his feet, copying every sweep of his arm like a grotesque, dark caricature: a poor comparison to the real thing.  As he turned, the swish of his cloak cut dramatic against the orange light, but his movements remained delicately balletic even when so harshly backlit.

“—you see, it’s actually rather fortunate that we find ourselves here in the Woodlands.  Wind - and lightning, but it would be rather foolish to practise such an unstable element when there are so many flammable and fellable trees around…  Wind is infinitely easier to learn when in the outdoors, rather than in a classroom, so intrinsically linked to the nature of our world as it is. And in these very woods, it may be even easier still.”

Therion stopped staring at Cyrus - (no, not staring, just looking) - and tuned in, sensing that the preamble was finally over and that the lesson was about to begin.

Cyrus said, “Listen,” and Therion listened.  But it soon became clear that the professor had no intention of giving further instructions, or indeed of saying anything more at all.

“Uh, what exactly am I listening to?”

“Why, the wind, of course.”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, and Therion supposed it was.  He swallowed the embarrassment creeping up his neck and listened again. This time, he did hear it - the soft, constant rustling of the evening breeze through the trees, ruffling their leaves and making their branches shiver.  It _was_ obvious, and it was a question how he hadn’t noticed it before, how it had managed to be filtered out of his brain as white noise when now that he was listening for it he could hear nothing else.   _Does Cyrus hear this all the time?_ Therion wondered, but when he looked at him again, Cyrus seemed as unaffected as always, standing with his arms loosely folded, a spell tome dangling from one hand.  Still smiling, like he was just happy Therion was here.

“Can you hear it?” he asked.

Therion nodded.  He was unwilling to speak, strangely afraid that his voice would deafen him, would drown out the sound of the wind he was focusing so intently on.

Cyrus’s voice, though, seemed as though it was carried on the breeze towards Therion.  Soft as a sigh yet loud as a command, whispering along with the trees and yet crisp, clear, distinct above it all.  “Can you feel it?”

Therion nodded again.  He _could_ feel it.  The wind was cool against his cheek and it badgered at his poncho, demanding his attention.  Some part of him, some part he didn’t yet have a name for, flickered to life in response to it.

“Good,” Cyrus praised.  “Keep listening. Keep feeling.  Let it in, hold it, and write the rune.”

Therion did, taking a breath and holding it like some sort of physical interpretation of Cyrus’s orders as he swiftly traced Balogar’s wind rune onto his dagger.

The feeling inside him grew stronger as he did, pressing at the edge of his consciousness and the inside of his chest; and the rune glowed a soft green, emboldening him…and then both of them spluttered and died.

He deflated in an instant, his breath coming out of him like all the air out of a balloon.  “I lost it.”

“Try again?” Cyrus suggested.

“No.”  Therion knew immediately that wasn’t the problem, yet he wasn’t sure exactly how he knew it.  He shook his head, trying to put it into words.  “No, it was like...it wasn’t enough. The sound and the feeling, it was like they just weren’t...weren’t _strong_ enough for me to grab on to.  Like—like trying to stoke a fire with wet wood.  It wouldn’t take.”

“I see,” Cyrus hummed, raising the hand not holding the book to his chin thoughtfully.  “Then perhaps you need a greater sensation to stoke your own fires, as it were.”

Before Therion could question just _what in the Gods’ names that even meant_ , Cyrus was in front of him, stepping yet again into his personal space like it belonged to him just as much, and he was taking Therion’s hand, and he was pressing it to his chest, and Therion hadn’t meant to hold his breath this time but there it was anyway, trapped in his throat, and all he could look at was Cyrus’s hand on top of his hand on top of Cyrus’s chest.  Heat flooded his mind, his veins, the familiar feeling he called on for fire making itself known, and he hurriedly stifled it before he accidentally set Cyrus’s clothes alight.

“Try this,” Cyrus said, his voice barely a murmur now that he was this close but still, somehow, drowning out everything else around them.  “Feel the rhythm of my breath.  The rise and fall. Try to match yours to it.  Focus on breathing, and let everything else come naturally.”

Therion closed his eyes like it would help.  At the very least it would stop him looking at the way Cyrus’s fingers gently clasped around his, although it didn’t stop him feeling it.  He swore that he could feel Cyrus’s heartbeat too, but that was probably impossible, it was probably just Therion’s own, thudding so hard his whole body was aware of it.

“Concentrate,” Cyrus said, cutting through Therion’s racing thoughts and racing pulse alike, and Therion took the first breath, shut his mouth, and did as he was told.

Cyrus’s chest moved in a steady rhythm under his hand.  In, out, in, out. He was close, incredibly so, enough that each exhalation blew across Therion’s cheeks, warm against the quickly chilling evening air.  Therion’s mind threatened distraction, body threatened fire, but he smothered it again and again, bringing himself back to the feeling of Cyrus breathing under his touch as many times as need be.  His own breath struggled against him, refusing at first to come in anything but shallow pants, like it was clawing its way out of his chest and then resisting against being drawn back in, but with enough persistence, with enough mumbles of “good, just like that,” he began to control it, until eventually it was as if he and Cyrus were breathing as one.

A soft breeze blew around them, and Therion made the mistake of opening his eyes.

Cyrus was smiling, which wasn’t a new thing, but the smile itself was - it was small, near imperceptible, but at this distance Therion could have counted Cyrus’s eyelashes if he wanted to, so he could definitely see the slight, fond upturn of his lips ( _fond_ , that was the name for it he couldn't find before), the genuine tenderness in his eyes and the way they crinkled at the corners…

Something that felt distinctly magic but distinctly _not_ Therion’s magic shot through him.  He flinched and almost pulled away, the strangeness of it making his stomach flip, but Cyrus let go first.  He dropped Therion’s hand and took a step back, his expression slack, and Therion wondered if he’d felt it too...whatever  _it_ was.

“Try writing the rune now,” Cyrus said.  His voice came out in a rush and oddly croaky, but Therion couldn’t think on it because he _finally_ felt the thrum of a new magic inside him, dancing on his fingertips like sparks, and as he wrote the wind rune again this time it _s_ _hone_.  A gust kicked up around the two men instantly, making the trees hiss in protest, the leaves they’d already shed being spun into a whirlwind around Therion and Cyrus’s feet.

Therion laughed, because it had worked, and it felt good.  It felt like a warm summer breeze; it felt like gulping down oxygen after being underwater; it felt like heavy, triumphant breaths in the aftermath of a chase; it felt like the rush of blowing out a lamp and having the dark settle over his skin, familiar and comforting.  Oh, he _liked_ wind.

He liked Cyrus, too.

The thought came to him on the wind as well: fleeting, unexpected, welcome.  Cyrus was smiling, stepping back into touching range again, clapping a hand on Therion’s shoulder, the touch tingling, hot; saying something Therion couldn’t hear, because it was all static, white noise, wind in the trees, because Therion—

Therion

_liked_

—

Therion lost focus instantly.

The rune on his dagger faded so fast it looked like it _shattered_ , and Therion’s control shattered with it.  For just a second, as the magic slipped away from him and back to nature, the wind got stronger, a gust becoming a gale, blowing insistently from behind Cyrus and towards Therion.  But a second was enough.

Cyrus stumbled into Therion, knocked off balance by the sudden wind, and Therion hadn’t realised he’d grabbed Cyrus’s arm until he lost his footing too and pulled Cyrus down on top of him.

He cast his other arm out to the side, sending his dagger spinning safely away as they went down, landing in a heap of leaves and limbs.  Their noses near touching, Cyrus looked at Therion, and Therion looked at Cyrus, and Cyrus laughed, and Therion’s mind _flatlined_.

“It appears we may need more practice.”  Cyrus’s voice was unbearably hushed, like it was a secret between them.  Therion was still holding his arm, keeping his weight pinned against him.  He felt sick, he felt vulnerable, he felt—

“What in the name of Sealticge are you two doing?” Primrose said.

Therion’s cognizance came back to him all at once, slamming his brain heavy and sore against his skull, and he immediately shoved Cyrus off of him, ignoring the scholar’s ungraceful grunt as he landed on his rear.  Primrose was at the edge of the clearing, clutching a piece of fabric and eyeing the situation with clear amusement.

“There was this awful wind all of a sudden, and it decided to carry off one of my dancing silks.  So I come to look for it, and I find...this.” She raised a hand to her mouth.  Therion had the discomfiting feeling she was trying to cover a laugh.  “I do apologise if I interrupted something.”

Therion sizzled in a full-body blush, opening his mouth to retort.  But Cyrus beat him to it.

“You didn’t!” he answered brightly, already on his feet, checking over his precious book for any hints of damage.  “We just had a minor magical mishap.” He smiled to himself like he was tickled by his own alliteration, but Therion thought he saw something a little bit manic in it.  It was certainly a far cry from the smile he’d shown Therion mere moments before.

Therion’s bewilderment only increased when, in less than a minute, Cyrus had excused himself without so much as looking at either of his company, quickly muttering some sort of distracted praise towards Therion before scurrying off back to camp, shoving past Primrose on his way.  Therion felt sick again, some disgusting concoction of shame and guilt and budding realisation clinging stickily against his insides.

Primrose glanced at him as he stood.  “Are you _sure_ I wasn’t—”

“Don’t,” Therion snapped, cutting her off so he didn’t have to think about the end of her question or what his answer might be.  His skin still prickled where Cyrus had been pressed up against him; his veins still thrummed with the combination of his own magic and...something else, something that didn’t belong to him but that he found he now wanted, the familiar thief’s urge to take making his fingers itch.  “Just...don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alternative chapter title: therion's gay awakening, and possibly cyrus's too?
> 
> i've also decided the timeline of this fic is....Whenever The Fuck I Want It To Be. but i _will_ put some actual plot-related stuff in some future chapters, so...stay tuned!
> 
> as always please hmu on twitter @QueenNeehola!


	4. Lightning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Therion took Cyrus’s hand without thinking. Automatically. Magnetised.  
> —Or he would have, if something like a strong static shock didn’t pass between them the moment their fingers brushed. They drew their arms back at the same time. Cyrus had that mystified look on his face again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, thank you to [sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarExo) for being my muse, for helping me out when this chapter was giving me grief, and for making me love cytheri more every day. (and please read their cytheri fics, they are such a wonderful writer and make me _feel so many things all the time_.)
> 
> oh, also!! this chapter **contains spoilers for therion's chapter 3**. although if you don't know about the existence of the secret job classes then i guess the whole premise of the fic is a spoiler, but. anyway...

To Therion's surprise, nothing changed.  Business continued as usual: the group made it to Clearbrook, spent a few days there and moved on, and Cyrus never mentioned the incident in the Woodlands even once.  And if Cyrus wasn't going to mention it, and since Primrose hadn't either (and wasn't _that_ a small miracle), then Therion was satisfied keeping his mouth shut, too.

But _was_ he?  It gnawed at him constantly.  The image of Cyrus sprawled over him and smiling bashfully played on a loop inside his head just as much as the unfortunate epiphany he'd had, that he—  

He stopped the thought short, stubborn, heat pricking the back of his neck.   The foolish urge to bring it up during his lessons with Cyrus became nigh unbearable, and he found himself more and more often swallowing down questions, the desire to know if Cyrus had felt that _thing_ \- that spark - between them too, if he knew what it was, if it would happen again when next they touched.

Well, _one_ thing had changed.  Though the magic tutelage continued, and though Therion was getting better every day at controlling his runes, all of Cyrus's usual tactile encouragement and praise were nowhere to be found.  It felt different from mere respect of Therion's personal space that he'd shown previously - it felt like Cyrus was hesitant to touch Therion at all, as though he had to stay at least two feet away at all times lest their arms accidentally brushed.  Even if - _when_ \- Therion tried to bridge that gap, to sit closer to Cyrus, or lean over his shoulder, or put a hand on his back, it was as though Cyrus saw it coming every time and intercepted him with a smooth dodge, a false smile, a muttered apology.  He slipped out of Therion's reach as though he were carried on the wind - but one that Therion had no control over.

(Quite why he was so intent on touching Cyrus was beyond him, but every time his thoughts brought him back to what he'd felt in the Woodlands: that sudden jolt of energy, how warm it had been, how steadying and patient and careful.  It had been magic, that much Therion was certain of, but if it wasn't _his_ magic then it had to have been _Cyrus's_ , flowing into him somehow and...he was just curious to see if it would happen again.  That was all.)

* * *

 

It wasn’t just Cyrus’s mannerisms that had changed.  His magic had been...different too, and Therion hadn’t been the only one to notice it.  The party, tired and trailing, had been ambushed by bandits on the road and Cyrus had stepped forward, electricity crackling from the pages of his spellbook despite his own fatigue.  He had intended to frighten their assailants and run them off. It was a tactic he had employed a few times, and it usually worked - most people didn’t fancy their chances when staring down the barrel of the raw power of the elements being channelled their way.

But that time, Cyrus had near enough summoned an entire _storm_.  Instantly, the sky blackened, thunder rumbled nearby, and the atmosphere turned heavy and oppressive with the stifling humidity of close weather about to break.  The bandits had turned tail and run before the spell was even finished, but Cyrus cast it anyway - or more like he couldn’t _stop_ it, his body convulsing with the force of the magic as a dozen white-hot forks of lightning zig-zagged down from above, hitting the ground around with a deafening crash.  It was nothing like the scholar’s usual spells: it lacked the control, the finesse, the elegant structure. Instead, the lightning only landed in a rough approximation of a circle, and nowhere near where the bandits had been - it splashed backwards, burning sparks narrowly missing Tressa, who sidestepped them at the last second.  Afterwards, Cyrus had near collapsed and had to be supported by Olberic, wide-eyed and mumbling his way through apologies, as though he hadn’t expected his magic to misbehave. _His_ magic, when Cyrus was usually his own best student, holding himself to impossibly high standards of poise and diligence when it came to his craft.

It reminded Therion of his own magic, wild and untamed.  Perhaps, in the Woodlands—

“Therion, look out!”

Ophilia’s scream came too late, or maybe Therion, stupidly lost in his thoughts yet again, just didn’t react in time.  Either way, claws raked through fabric and skin alike, slashing at his side.  He hissed in pain yet turned swiftly, already reaching for his dagger to counter.

But the fire got there first.

The monsters before him erupted into flame with such force that it was more like an explosion, screeching in agony as their skin charred and curled off their bones.  Therion halted mid-swing, the flames less than a foot from him, spasming and vengeful.  It felt like they were burning up all the oxygen in the atmosphere with how Therion’s breath caught searing and sore in his lungs, and he desperately tried to recall his magic, wary of his companions getting caught in his frenzied crossfire.

But he discovered, as he grasped through emptiness and the fire continued to thrash, the beasts already burned to dust, that it wasn’t his magic at all.

He met Cyrus’s eyes on the other side of the wall of flame.  Even with the roar of the fire now drowning out everything, he thought he could hear the professor’s heaving breaths; or maybe it was a placebo, an imaginary echo given how Cyrus’s shoulders were rising and falling with the effort of keeping a steady rhythm of breath.  His eyes were wide, manic, _panicked_ as they reflected the firelight, and Therion imagined for a moment himself taking Cyrus’s hands, urging him to breathe steadily like he had taught Therion that evening in the Woodlands, the two of them matching breath for breath, perfectly in sync as Cyrus calmed down. Though Therion couldn't understand why Cyrus was so worked up when he'd just gotten a little...

 _hurt_.

Therion blinked.  Cyrus blinked back.  (From the outside, one could have seen the same dawning realisation in their eyes reflecting back at one another, but neither man realised it from his own perspective.)  The fire died away all at once like it had been switched off at the source, and Therion crumpled to the ground, suddenly and inexplicably exhausted. Ophilia was at his side the same moment everyone else crowded Cyrus: Tressa tugging at his sleeve and excitedly demanding to know how he _did_ that, Alfyn offering a concoction to restore his magic reserves, Primrose looking between Cyrus and Therion with a quirked eyebrow and an enigmatic smirk.  But Cyrus shoved past them all, rough and uncouth and utterly unlike himself, and he rushed towards Therion with enough haste that he almost tripped over his own feet.

It was just a cut.  Therion had avoided a deeper slash thanks to naturally quick reflexes despite his late reaction time, and Ophilia had already finished healing it up, the skin knitting neatly back together over the three jagged lines under his shirt by the time Cyrus screeched to a halt in front of them.

“Are you all right?” he asked, breathless.

“It isn’t serious,” Ophilia answered for Therion, smoothing his poncho down to cover his torn clothing.  “I just wish my warning had come earlier. Then perhaps we could have avoided this altogether.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Therion chastised, but his voice wasn’t harsh - he was fond of Ophilia and her gentleness, the diligent brightness with which she embraced the world and whatever it held for her.  He admired that. “I wasn’t paying attention. Thanks for looking out for me.”

Ophilia smiled and squeezed his arm, and then she rose, leaving them to check on their other companions after the battle.  Therion watched after her, a strange bashfulness creeping over him and keeping him from looking at Cyrus, but could feel in the way that his skin tingled that Cyrus was looking at him, scrutinising him as if looking for more injuries, as if he would see what an experienced cleric wouldn’t.

“You too,” Therion said.  “Thanks, I mean.  For taking out those monsters.”

A hand breached the space between them, and Therion followed it up and finally settled on Cyrus’s face.  He was smiling that small, barely-there smile again. “My pleasure. I’m just glad you’re alright.”

Therion took Cyrus’s hand without thinking.  Automatically. Magnetised.

—Or he would have, if something like a strong static shock didn’t pass between them the moment their fingers brushed.  They drew their arms back at the same time. Cyrus had that mystified look on his face again. Therion stood up by himself, but he wasn’t quick enough to stop Cyrus turning on his heel and striding away into the waiting praise of their companions once more.

* * *

More changed between them after that.  There were no more strange, private moments between them because there were no moments at all, as Cyrus begun to avoid Therion altogether.  Every time he came within earshot, Cyrus would make some excuse about having something to attend to, and then he’d be gone with a speed that would have made Aeber proud.  Therion’s magic lessons were unofficially put on hold as well, and that would have annoyed him more than anything, except it didn’t seem like Cyrus was doing it maliciously.  Honestly, he looked constantly busy, buried among his books even more than usual and scribbling notes of his own when he wasn’t reading.  He was engrossed in his own thoughts more often than not, staring ahead with a pensive expression, fingering the collar of his shirt or the page of his book.  His accidental ignorance had improved as he had travelled with the group and grown more comfortable with having companions, but now he seemed to have reverted to the Cyrus that Therion had first met, barely hearing any words spoken to him, firmly shut inside his own head.  

It didn’t take long until Therion felt like he couldn’t talk to Cyrus at all.  It was as if the wall that had existed between them at the start of their shared journey - the wall that had slowly begun to crumble and fall over time - had sprung up anew, and Therion couldn’t find the footholds to climb over it.  So he stopped trying.

“Well, that’s pathetic,” Primrose said.

“What?”

“You’re pathetic,” she said again.  Her tankard hit the table with a loud enough _clang_ that several of the tavern’s patrons turned their way.  Therion shot them a glare and resisted the urge to sink into his scarf.

Therion got along well with Primrose - and unusually for him, he had since the start.  She was familiar with the dark underbelly of Orsterra just as he was, and it had always felt like a quiet solidarity between them, even if they rarely spoke of their personal experiences to one another.  It was easy to sit and drink and talk about nothing with Primrose. Plus, she could hold her liquor, which was always a bonus. Although not tonight it wasn’t, with the first buzz of tipsiness encroaching on the edge of Therion’s brain while Primrose looked at him with clear, sober derision.

She had some cheek, Therion thought, laying into him like this when _she_ was the one who had invited him out drinking.  The group had arrived in Sunshade and Primrose had immediately taken his arm, blinking at him through long lashes, a pleading tone in her voice as she asked him to keep her company.  She had bad memories of the town, understandably, and Therion wasn’t _heartless_ , and as much as he was sure she could do it on her own (and _would_ , and would love every second of it) he had relished in not-so-slyly putting his dagger on show every time someone had looked at Primrose with even the slightest hint of recognition.  So it was that they had a wide berth around their table in the tavern, and so it was that Primrose could mock Therion relentlessly without worry. He had the sneaking suspicion this had been her plan all along.  He should have known she wouldn’t keep her mouth shut forever.

“How am I pathetic?”

Primrose snorted.  “Because Cyrus is being _Cyrus_ , and you’re taking it as a personal attack.”

“He is _not_ being himself.”

“Oh, and you would know all about that,” Primrose teased, dragging out the word _all_ into a needling, sing-song barb.  Therion felt himself flush, and hoped he could blame the alcohol.  (As if she would ever buy that.)  “Listen, the man doesn’t have a nasty bone in his body.  If he’s shutting you out, it’s not intentional. And it isn’t just that. You’ve seen how his magic’s going haywire recently.  Plus, he stepped right on Linde’s tail the other day and got a nice little scratch for his troubles, and _then_ he walked face-first into a branch.  Poor Alfyn and Ophilia have had their work cut out lately just treating his self-inflicted injuries.”

That made Therion laugh, and Primrose’s smirk softened.  “He’s just...preoccupied with something. He has that face on, you know the one.  His thinking face.” She took a swig of her drink, gulping it down with a lack of grace that was absolutely unbefitting her former status.  Not that she cared. “And if anyone can figure out what’s on his mind, it’s probably you.”

Therion wrinkled his nose.  “You think?”

“I _know_ ,” Primrose corrected him.  “If you can endure his hour-long lectures on magical theory, you’re probably his closest confidant at this point.”

(Therion didn’t feel it right to bring up the fact that he rarely actually listened to Cyrus ramble about the principles of magic, and that he usually instead became distracted by the elegant sweep of the scholar’s arm, the dainty steps he took as he paced, the curl of his thin fingers as he brought them to his chin in thought or the way his tongue darted out to swipe across his thumb so he could leaf through his books with ease.  He didn’t need to give her more ammunition, especially when she was already grinning like a cait at him from across the table.)

Before Therion could decide what he should say, Primrose cut in, “Anyway, go to bed.  It’s late, and we’re moving on to Wellspring tomorrow.”  She was right, it _was_ late - the tavern had mostly emptied out during the course of their conversation, and the few patrons that were left were clearly regulars judging by the casual, quiet way they nursed their drinks.  Therion didn’t feel particularly tired, but the mention of Wellspring had something like nervous excitement prickling at his skin, the promise of all the adrenaline he’d need to get back the next Dragonstone urging him to rest.

“What about you?” he asked even as he stood, chair squeaking against the old floor.

Primrose brandished her tankard towards him.  “I’m gonna get a few more drinks before I turn in for the night.  Don’t worry, I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” She shot him a wink, and he smiled and shook his head and turned away, waving over his shoulder as he made his way back to the inn.  This had definitely been her plan.

* * *

When he got to his room, Cyrus was there.

No, he corrected himself: when he got to _their_ room, Cyrus was there, because they were _sharing a room_ , because he remembered that _Primrose_ had been in charge of making those arrangements.  Therion cursed under his breath and almost walked back out again, straight back to the tavern to wipe the no-doubt smug look off her face, but then Cyrus turned towards him, eyes widening a fraction, a hesitant smile pulling at one corner of his mouth, and Therion was rooted to the spot.

“Oh,” Cyrus said.  “Therion.” Quietly surprised, as if he hadn’t expected him.  And perhaps he hadn’t, Therion thought, with how he was sitting cross-legged on the bed, cloak abandoned and folded neatly over the chair in the corner, shoes tucked away beneath the bed, a book spread open before him.  He’d been turned towards the window as well when Therion had come in, and Therion imagined him admiring Sunshade at night: the warm glow coming from the buildings, the twinkling expanse of the starry sky above, and how neither could penetrate the dark, vast stretch of the desert beyond the town walls.  Or perhaps he’d been examining his own reflection in the glass; studying that contemplative expression of his with a discerning eye. Therion wondered what it looked like to Cyrus himself. Therion wondered what _he_ looked like to Cyrus, standing vacant and rigid in the doorway.  Warmth tingled across the back of his neck like the ghost of a touch, and a thought rose unbidden of unfamiliar words like _enchanting_ and _exquisite_.  Therion shoved it stubbornly back wherever it came from.

“Primrose said you wanted to talk to me?” Cyrus said, and Therion slammed back to the present moment with a sickening thud.

“Oh, did she?”   _Of course she did._  It was a struggle to keep his voice level and innocently questioning when all he wanted to do was throttle the woman in question.

“If it’s about your magic lessons—”

It wasn’t, at least not completely, but before he could stop himself Therion had blurted out, “I want to learn the lightning rune.”  It wasn’t _exactly_ a lie, but it was a chance for them to get over whatever had been hanging over them and keeping them apart, an opening for Therion to finally bridge that widening, awkward gap; and with how Cyrus brightened visibly and immediately in that way he always did when teaching or magic or a combination of the two was involved, it was probably the best thing Therion could have said.  

And he looked so damn _happy_ as he patted the space on the bed in front of him, as Therion shed his poncho and clambered to sit, mirroring Cyrus’s position, that it was like there had never been any awkwardness between them at all.

* * *

 

The stone that made up the majority of Sunshade’s buildings had a natural ability to retain heat, and so despite the coldness of the desert night outside the two men were comfortably warm as they sat opposite one another sans their outer layers, just far enough apart that if Therion flexed his toes, he would have brushed Cyrus’s foot.  Therion blinked the thought away, and when he looked again, Cyrus had shifted to tuck his foot under his opposite knee.

They started as normal.  Therion soon relaxed into the now familiar feeling of magic thrumming inside him, tiptoeing around the edges of his thoughts and waiting to take shape.  But as before, it was hard for him to grasp exactly what that shape should be. Lightning - what _was_ lightning?  What did it mean to him?  What thoughts, what feelings, what memories evoked such a raw, primal power in him?  His mind spun wildly, never settling on a potential answer for more than a second before discarding it as useless.  He could feel his magic grow frustrated, too; it roiled almost sentient in his veins, making him fidgety.

It didn’t help that Cyrus was taking the opportunity to give Therion a history lesson on Sunshade’s technological advancements.  “It’s fascinating, really.  I presume you’ve heard the rumour that it all began when a patron of one of the establishments happened to kick over a lantern while they were—how do I put it...in the throes of passion?”  Therion hadn’t, and there was something about Cyrus using a phrase like _the throes of passion_ that clung uncomfortably to his skin like another layer of cooled sweat and just distracted him further.  “Apparently the building burned to the ground, which was, naturally, terrible for business, and so while they rebuilt it the citizens of Sunshade also spent time researching alternative energies for lighting and heating their homes, resulting in them learning to channel _lightning magic_ , of all things, into vessels using conductive metals and circuitry!  I must admit I don’t yet fully understand the ins and outs of it myself - though I’d like to - but I find it incredible that rather than curse their town’s, ah, sordid reputation, they _embraced_ it, using it as a catalyst of sorts to further research into new, more efficient ways to use the elements as power sources so that they could...well.”  Here Cyrus paused, an uncharacteristic flush crossing his cheekbones. (It suited him.) “So that they could continue their— _business_ without having to worry about tending to lanterns or stoking fires.”

“Not that this isn’t interesting,” Therion lied, “but it isn’t helping me learn the rune.”  As if to prove his point, he marked Balogar’s lightning rune onto his dagger, held loosely on his lap.  It fizzled and faded instantly. His eyes slid over to the lantern on the bedside table, watching in case it reacted.  But its curious little metal coil just glowed on steadily inside the glass, filling the room with a soft, yellow-white glow.

Cyrus had the decency to look sheepish.  “Ah, my apologies. In all honesty, I’m a little unsure how to go about teaching you this one.  For me it’s as simple as putting a theory into practice, but the way you approach magic is…”

As he trailed off, a thought - an impulse - came to Therion.  “Show me,” he said, sudden, leaning forward. He could almost see his fervent expression reflected in Cyrus’s eyes, shining in the lamplight.  “Let me feel how you do it. Maybe it’ll give me some ideas.”

And he took Cyrus’s hands.  ...Almost.  There was that static shock again, stronger this time, a tiny thunderclap nipping at the space between their fingertips.  Cyrus drew back. Again.

“As I thought,” he announced; a quiet, decisive verdict, “I believe our magic is reacting together.  Our different methods are meeting in the middle and bouncing off of one another, just compatible enough to have a slight influence.  Or at the very least, _you_ appear to be influencing _me_ , since I’m sure you’ve noticed I’ve had some, er, trouble exerting my usual level of control over some of my spells recently.  It might be down to the Runelord’s latent ability to transfer their powers, but as I’ve not had much chance to study it as of yet I can’t say for sure...perhaps the amount of physical contact we’ve had recently has something to do with it.”

Therion almost felt bad, recalling Cyrus’s wide-eyed shock when his magic had gone haywire, but the way he said _physical contact_ , so casually, suddenly had Therion burning, palms sizzling with the urge to draw fire out of the air around him.  He quashed the feeling with some difficulty. _Wrong element_.

Cyrus continued, oblivious to his questionable choice of words as always, “I had been trying to do some research into it, but there isn’t that much practical data available to analyse.  I would like to experiment more, but…” His eyes found Therion’s, and as they met Therion found himself thinking of his hand pressed to Cyrus’s chest, their breath in sync, magic surrounding them like a bubble.  He hadn’t consciously sought out the thought, but there it was, glowing bright at the front of his mind. Cyrus’s voice became hushed, hesitant. “It would require your help, to continue as we have been, but I thought my asking might make you uncomfortable, so I’m ashamed to admit I have been...well, avoiding you somewhat, until I came up with a more appropriate way to broach the subject—though I did end up getting rather swept up in my research.  But I would hate you to feel as though I’m pressuring you into anything!”

“You aren’t.”  The words were out before Therion could even consider holding them back.  They hung in the air for a moment, almost palpable in their clumsy honesty, but then Cyrus seemed to breathe them in, his chest puffing slightly, his posture softening.  Therion looked away quickly. “I-I want to keep learning magic, and the way we’ve been doing it till now seems to work best, and if it can help you with your research or whatever then it’s fine.  It’s not like it hurts or anything, anyway.”

He _felt_ Cyrus smile.  He had no idea how that was even possible, but when he looked back, the professor was indeed smiling, that soft and fond little quirk of the lips again.  (Therion had never seen him use it on anyone else. He wondered if he even knew he was doing it.)

“No,” Cyrus concurred, “I must say it isn’t an entirely unpleasant development.”  He gestured at Therion’s hands, bunched back in his lap, and asked, timid as if he still wasn’t sure about suggesting it, but still with that small smile like he might already know the answer, “If I may?”

Therion smiled in return, feeling some of his own tension drain away.  “You may.”

And this time, Cyrus took his hands.  They both flinched at the initial jolt, still there, but this time they persisted, hands clasped, and the reaction subsided.  Cyrus made a pleased noise. (His hands were warm.)

“Show me,” Therion said again, less urgent than the first time.  “Maybe if I feel some of your magic, it’ll—”

“Spark something,” Cyrus finished for him, and they both grinned at the wordplay.

Cyrus summoned the meekest lightning spell he knew, dialling the power down as low as he could conceivably make it - he didn’t want to hurt Therion, after all.  Therion felt him channel it, close and joined at the hands as they were, and just as quickly he felt the power seem to siphon out of Cyrus almost as fast as he was conjuring it.  It was like Therion was absorbing the magic: he felt it tingle through his palms and up his arms, leaving goosebumps in its wake. It felt secure, harmonising, refreshing - this was what he’d felt before, what _Cyrus’s magic_ felt like, and it had Therion letting out a little sigh, his eyes fluttering closed as he basked in its succor.

“Are you all right?”  Cyrus sounded genuinely concerned.  Therion suddenly remembered he was supposed to be concentrating.

“Y-Yeah, fine, I just—Can you do it again?”

He thought he felt ( _imagined_ ) Cyrus smile again, and another small shock ran up the lengths of his arms.  He focused the second time, paying close attention to how the magic felt across his skin, prickling, raising the hair on his arms.  He focused on the scene too, picturing with perfect clarity Cyrus’s hands in his as he sat, silent and patient, the one responsible for sending sparks up his arm.  The one responsible for a lot of things.

As if on cue, thunder rumbled outside, a distant burble in the dark skies.

“You’re doing it,” Cyrus whispered, awed.  “You’re doing it, Therion. How are you doing it?  You’re incredible.”

Therion didn’t know, not really, but the electric feeling seemed to be spreading through more of his body: into his shoulders, down his spine, making him shudder.  Whether Cyrus was still responsible for it or not, his heartfelt compliment, so earnest as always, seemed to empower the feeling more.  Magic started to surge in Therion’s veins.  He felt the bed move. Cyrus’s knee bumped against his. The thunder came again, a little louder, a little nearer.

“Therion?”

His eyes opened and Cyrus was _right_ _there_.  Close.  Close enough to—

Therion’s magic (definitely _his_ magic, with all its novice wildness) swelled and he couldn’t stop the accidental shock he sent out, unpolished and unshackled and straight into Cyrus’s waiting hands.  Cyrus winced but didn’t pull away, just looked on with a disarming mix of gentleness and worry and _amusement_.  

“I felt that,” he almost laughed, but it came out more like a gasp.  “Your magic is truly wondrous, Therion. You have such a natural affinity for it, and it’s so fascinatingly unrestrained, unpredictable...  It couldn’t be anyone else’s but yours.”

There was a flash at the window as the first bolt of lightning struck somewhere in the middle of the desert, but neither of them turned to look.  They took matching shaky breaths, eyes locked.

“That’s it,” Cyrus continued, absently, like he was barely paying attention to what he was saying.  “Just like that. Pull it closer. Make it yours.”

Another tremor ran up Therion’s arms, different this time, not purposefully magical, not distinctly _anything_ that he could put a name to, but there nonetheless.  Cyrus’s hands were soft in his, barely calloused, attesting to a life of wielding nothing rougher than books and staves; his eyes, still boring into Therion’s, were abyssal in their depths but framed soft around the edges by his lashes, enticing, coaxing, threatening to pull Therion under; his hair was mussed out of its usual neat styling, as though full of static, and Therion had the inexplicable urge to reach over and tug at the ribbon, to watch it fall delicate around his neck.

There was something like an audible hum in the air, like the background buzz that came from Sunshade’s lightning lanterns but stronger, more palpable, but as quick as Therion realised it was there he stopped being able to hear it.  He couldn’t hear the thunder now either, couldn’t hear anything over the noise of his heartbeat, thumping out of control yet again—or was it Cyrus’s heart, pulsing away imaginary underneath his palm—or was it both of theirs, beating at the same time, mutually pumping blood and magic through them as one?

 _Beautiful_ , Therion thought, caught himself thinking, knew it was directed at Cyrus and couldn’t find a single part of him that cared.  With his loose shirt and skin glazed pink from travelling under the harsh sun, Cyrus was glowing and stunning and—did he lean closer, did _Therion_ lean closer, what did it matter, they were tormentingly close to each other, gazes drawn together like magnets, still holding hands, trembling with the energy of what could only be their combined magic, skin almost crackling with it, the fizzing in the air growing stronger, louder, almost deafening, and just a little bit more, just a little closer and they could...could—

Therion thought the word _kiss_ at the same time that thunder pealed and crashed like it was splitting the sky apart, and lightning struck somewhere _very_ close by and illuminated the room in searing white, and then they were plunged into darkness as all of the inn’s lanterns short-circuited and went out.

* * *

 

In the silence that followed, Therion and Cyrus sat, breathing into one another, feeling each other’s body heat, unwilling to move.  Robbed of sight, Therion found himself even more hyper-aware of Cyrus’s presence, the fingers curled around his, the dip in the mattress where Cyrus sat in front of him.

But then the moment passed, and they separated.

Therion felt the echo of Cyrus on his skin even as they dropped hands, even as Cyrus summoned a small flame to hold between them, even as he slid off the bed and into his shoes.  By the flickering orange light, Cyrus looked flushed, shaken, his shoulders shuddering with uneven breaths that Therion felt mirrored in his own suddenly tight chest.

“I’ll go check on the others,” Cyrus said, voice jittery, and when he turned away Therion noticed how his shirt clung to his back with sweat.  He left without another word, the light source and the lingering tingles tremoring up and down Therion’s arms going with him.

He left his cloak behind.  Therion’s gaze travelled to where he knew it sat draped over the chair.  He rose, his feet taking him over to it even in the dark, his hands reaching out, fingers curling in the sumptuous fabric.  Something akin to residual magic danced along his knuckles, familiar yet strange, and Therion suddenly recalled that he had meant to be learning the lightning rune. How could he have forgotten? Absently, he sat on the edge of the bed.  Absently, he traced the rune from memory, his dagger almost lost in the darkness and in the folds of Cyrus’s cloak bundled in his lap. Absently, he watched as the magic took, his blade lighting up blue-white effortlessly, the feeling of Cyrus’s magic and the quiet intimacy still fresh in his mind.  Not absently at all, he fell backwards onto the mattress, taking the cloak with him.

* * *

Things had definitely changed between them.  If no one else noticed, Primrose definitely had, her new habit of keeping a close watch on the two men paying off spectacularly.  In the few days’ travel it took them to cross the desert to Wellspring, Cyrus and Therion were nearly attached at the hip. They walked in step, bumping shoulders; they helped to patch one another up after particularly rough battles; they sat close and pored over books of magical theory together in moments of rest, discussing their thoughts in quiet voices; they seemed to move and breathe and _think_ in sync, punctuating their fledgling closeness with easy smiles.  They were still dancing around each other, but dancing closer, and it wasn’t awkward avoidance this time.  Primrose had seen it all before in her line of work from the poor fools who had hoped to win her over: the soft puppy eyes when they thought themselves unwatched, the stammered apologies at an accidental brush of fingers, the tips of their ears glowing like beacons.

Whatever else may have gone on, Cyrus seemed to have reined in his magic again, commanding it once more with his usual level of perfect control, and Therion’s had improved as well.  With lightning now added to his arsenal, coupled with his speed and Cyrus’s mastery of all the elements, they were a fearsome sight in battle together as they cut an easy path through the desert beasts and bandits.  That Therion was brimming over with newfound confidence was plain to see as he stole his way into Wellspring’s black market, leading the group deeper through the safety of the shadows, readier than ever to get another step closer to his promised freedom from that damned shackle on his wrist.

But it didn’t last.

* * *

Therion hadn’t spoken much of his past.  He had only mentioned briefly of his old partner in crime, had alluded to being betrayed, and with how reluctant he had been to open up to the others at all it didn’t take a genius of Cyrus’s level to put two and two together.

The man before them - _Darius_ , Therion called him - cut an imposing figure, tall, with striking red hair and a sneer to match as he mocked Therion, overly familiar yet scathing.  (Cyrus, watching, saw Therion’s fists clench as he flinched away from Darius’s touch.  He heard the waver in Therion’s voice as he snapped back at the taunts, his replies loaded with sarcasm but tinged with desperation.  Cyrus wasn’t a spiteful man, but he instantly and vehemently _abhorred_ Darius.)

Now Therion’s confidence had become urgency, his voice bitter as he barked at the rest of the group to hurry, to get the Dragonstone back ( _to follow Darius_ , Cyrus heard instead).  He jumped into the front lines of every fight as they headed deeper into the caverns, foregoing the magic he had worked so hard to learn in favour of slicing rashly and viciouslywith his dagger, paying no heed to the scrapes he got in return and shutting down Ophilia’s offers to mend them for him.  Not that the magic would have come to him anyway, even if he had tried - there were no good feelings left in him, no good memories to draw power from any longer, just a cloying queasiness at the back of his throat and a vexing jumble of conflicted emotions turning over and over in his mind: rage and disgust and anxiety and impulse and fear and hatred and, buried beneath them all, an old, old feeling of longing, of _relief_ , and he felt _sick_ with it.

When Therion found Darius again, when he stood rigid and let himself be needled and scorned, when Darius left and left his crony behind to fight for him - another poor bastard taken in by his false promises of security and companionship - when Therion brandished his dagger, his companions’ presences fading into the background of his mind until it was as if he was standing there alone, again, as always…

It was then that Therion felt it, climbing from the soles of his feet, taking hold of his limbs, puppeteering him—his steps clumsy with impatience, his knuckles white—as it clung to his insides like a cancer.  Magic. Unmistakably magic, unmistakably his, unmistakably powerful, and unmistakably sickening, putrid, oppressive, _dark_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHHHHHH SHIT IS THAT PLOT????? ACTUAL REAL PLOT??? _IT SURE IS, KIDDOS_  
>  (don't worry it won't last)
> 
> me: what if i just invented electricity for the express purpose of making therion short out the whole inn when he thinks about kissing cyrus  
> me to me: you're a genius. continue  
> (in my defence sam enabled me)
> 
> hit me up on twitter @QueenNeehola and talk to me about cytheri!


	5. Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something exploded out of him. It wasn’t wind magic, nor was it fire or ice or lightning or _anything_ he had ever learned. Sorcerous force rolled off him in repulsively thick waves. It burned out of his every pore, sweat trickling down his neck even as he shuddered with the cool sliminess of it. He choked on it as it filled his lungs, and he felt something solid and sickening crawl up his throat, but when he coughed into his hand it came away clean. Deafened to the startled cries of his companions, deafened to everything except the sound of magic rushing through his head like blood, Therion looked down at his hands with hazy vision and watched himself write the rune for dark magic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to: the chapter that kicked my ass. enjoy your stay.
> 
>  
> 
> **this chapter contains spoilers for therion's chapters 3 + 4!**

Gareth was quick with his daggers.  He danced and sliced and stole the very items from the group’s pouches before they could react.  By the time they managed to dispatch his comrades, they were all bruised and bleeding despite Ophilia’s best efforts, yet Gareth had nary a scratch on him.  Even H’aanit and Linde were struggling to keep up with him, and Cyrus’s spells were only keeping him at bay through the sheer area of ground they could cover.  The only one who was really on par with Gareth’s speed and reflexes was Therion.

 _Should_ have been Therion.

 

They should have been evenly matched.  It was eerie, watching Gareth.  The way he moved, his fighting stance and his grip on his knives, how he kept sneering and mouthing off about being _Lord_ Darius’s right-hand man: it all reminded Therion of how he used to be, how he used to stand tall and proud at Darius’s side with that very same obnoxious smirk on his face, how he used to steal and injure without question for Darius’s sake...until he _did_ question it, and ended up betrayed and broken at the bottom of a cliff for his troubles.

It was like fighting a reflection of his past.  Therion could see the moves coming before Gareth made them, could predict Gareth’s next actions like they were his own.  So they should have been evenly matched.  But they weren’t.

Therion’s body felt filled to bursting with the stifling oppression of the unfamiliar magic, distracting him, slowing his reactions.  Already he hated the cold treacly creep of it through his bloodstream, gradual but unstoppable.  He didn’t know what it was, only that it was different from his normal magic; _stronger_ somehow, whispering siren promises of power and glory even as it twisted his gut into a thrashing, nauseous storm.  It _begged_ to be used, pulling at his hands and feet and urging him into its depths.  His muscles were taut as bowstrings with the effort of suppressing it enough to keep his head above it, though he felt its long, shadowy fingers curl teasingly around his throat.  This magic had Therion completely in its grip, leaving him sluggish, vulnerable, _frightened_.

He dodged too late and one of Gareth’s knives caught his cheek, the tip cutting a shallow line through his skin.  The other knife swung down, and Therion braced clumsily for impact, but blisteringly cold glacial stalagmites that could only have come from Cyrus erupted at Gareth’s feet, forcing him back and shattering his defences.  Linde pounced, slashing at his legs and forcing him to take a knee as H’aanit kept him pinned with arrow after arrow.  It was the perfect opportunity for Therion to strike.

 _Wind_ , Therion realised.  The insight cut inexplicably through his stagnant thoughts, and he had no idea where he’d pulled it from but he clung to it like a lifeline.   _He’s weak to wind_.

Even knowing what he needed to do, it was hard to concentrate.  Therion struggled to fight his way past the new magic and find the old, to recall the connections that channelled the various elements through him.  Vaguely, he heard Cyrus call out _Ventus Saltare_ and felt the gusts blow harmlessly past him, buffeting Gareth hard and keeping him at a distance to give Therion more time.   _That’s right, wind._  Therion liked wind, he remembered that.  It was easy to remember that.  Wind was gentle despite its power, wind was free, wind was the steady rhythm of a heartbeat under his palm.  He had realised he liked wind the same time he’d realised he liked—

Therion’s hold on his magic gave and he forgot how that thought was supposed to end.

 

Something exploded out of him.  It wasn’t wind magic, nor was it fire or ice or lightning or _anything_ he had ever learned.  Sorcerous force rolled off him in repulsively thick waves.  It burned out of his every pore, sweat trickling down his neck even as he shuddered with the cool sliminess of it.  He choked on it as it filled his lungs, and he felt something solid and sickening crawl up his throat, but when he coughed into his hand it came away clean.  Deafened to the startled cries of his companions, deafened to everything except the sound of magic rushing through his head like blood, Therion looked down at his hands with hazy vision and watched himself write the rune for dark magic.

 _No_ , he thought, but the magic made him think _yes_.  As soon as the rune was written, his dagger glowed a deep, dangerous purple tinged with misty black along the blade edge.  The magic had taken instantly as soon as he’d stopped suppressing it, easier than any other rune he had ever written.  He hadn’t even thought about it.  It had been instinct, just like snatching a coin purse from an unguarded pocket.  (Just like reaching for the very hand that had cast him over the edge.)  He _hated_ it instantly.  There was no relief that it had worked, no pride or excitement to wield his new element - all Therion felt was passionate fury and maddening revulsion as the magic circulated comfortably within him as if it had always been there.

He wanted rid of it.  His eyes landed on Gareth, and he felt the smile pull so hard at his mouth that his cheeks ached with it.   _Don’t_ , he thought weakly.   _Do it_ , he thought as well, far stronger.

He leapt at Gareth and plunged his knife into his stomach.  Dark energy followed a second later, spreading out from the stab wound and swallowing Gareth almost whole until all that could be seen of him were his struggling limbs.  Therion was filled with gruesome bliss at the sight, the acrid taste of bile sitting heavy at the back of his tongue even as the manic grin never left his face.

When the magic finally receded, Gareth was white with death.  His precious Lord Darius’s name was the last thing to ever leave his lips.  Therion almost wanted to stab him again for it.

 

* * *

 

With Gareth dead and Darius gone along with the Dragonstone, the party had nothing else to do but retreat back to town to tend to their wounds and low spirits.  They walked in silence, acutely aware of the strange, negative aura hanging over them all and over Therion in particular.  He had seemed to all of them to be possessed by something as he had— _ended_ Gareth, his eyes flashing vicious and crazed in a way none of them had ever seen before, his movements jerky and urgent, and his _smile_...  Afterwards, he had slowly come back to himself, a little more of the Therion they had come to know more apparent with every heaving breath.  Awareness returned to his expression and his posture softened with exhaustion, and then he promptly threw up, trembling uncontrollably as his bloody dagger fell from his grip.  It was obvious he was badly shaken from seeing the man called Darius again, from _taking a life_ so easily, but it felt wrong to approach him with his eyes still blown so wide and his hands bunched timorously in the fabric of his poncho.  He looked for all the world like a frightened wild animal, cornered and looking for a way out.  And so the group walked ahead, all of them keeping careful eyes on Therion but giving him the space and patience he clearly needed.

(Well, almost all of them.)

 

Therion detested dark magic, innately and instantaneously.  Pain and betrayal and loneliness and his own stupidity: everything he had tried to forget, had almost succeeded in forgetting - this new element brought them all rushing back with painstaking clarity as if to fuel itself.  Jittery both outside and inside, his hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly and his magic felt twisted and confused inside him, making his skin itch.  He almost wanted to laugh - it was a _perfect_ metaphor for his inner turmoil.  Cyrus would probably wax poetic about the comparison when Therion told him.

 _When?_  Therion caught the wording in his mind at the same time he realised he _wanted_ to tell Cyrus about it.  He should tell him either way, he knew that.  If Therion’s magic was linked to his feelings as Cyrus theorised, then he definitely had to explain to Cyrus why dark magic, of all the elements, had been wielded so naturally and powerfully by his hand, and why he never wanted to use it again.  

But that wasn’t _just_ it.  Therion chased the thought further and found himself picturing Cyrus’s smile, imagining his gentle tone, his hand resting lightly on Therion’s shoulder—no, his cheek—no, the back of his neck, as he whispered calming pledges against—

 

“Therion?”

Therion snapped to attention instantly, his face lighting up with a blush as he looked up at Cyrus, who had fallen back to walk with him.  He hadn’t heard him approach.  Again.

“Are you alright?” Cyrus asked.  It was a redundant question and they both knew it, but his expression was one of such genuine concern that Therion couldn’t begrudge him for asking.

He looked away and shrugged.  His mind screeched _tell Cyrus_ —hadn’t he just been thinking about how much he wanted to?—but suddenly faced with the reality of it Therion felt the old, familiar clamp around his jaw, urging him away from the truth and into comfortable falsehoods.  No one knew about his past.  He had never told anyone, never _trusted_ anyone enough to tell them.  Once bitten, twice shy, and Therion still had the bitemarks.  But Cyrus wasn’t Darius.  Cyrus wasn’t like anyone Therion had ever met; he oozed candor and acceptance, all effortless smiles and open arms for a dirty criminal.  And Therion had gotten attached.  _More_ than attached.  (Pathetically sentimental, indeed.)

He cleared his throat.  “I—”

“I must say, though, I was astounded by the way you brandished that dark magic.  And without any direction!  Truly, you were incredible.”

Therion felt his heart stop.  Something inside him twinged uncomfortably, pulling tight in amongst where his magic sat.   _No_.

“It’s such an unusual element, and it’s so rare to find someone with as much of a natural aptitude for it as you appear to have.”

The feeling grew tighter, sharper, winding him.  He could hardly breathe.  _No.  That’s not what you’re supposed to say._  

“I’d be interested to see you use it again.  I think with some polish we could really shape it into something wonderful.”

Tighter still, further and further, like a rope, fraying in the middle.  His stomach churned.  _We couldn’t.  It’s not wonderful.  Please—_

Cyrus was smiling, which was the worst part, because it was a smile Therion recognised.  It was that small, secretive quirk of the lips; the smile he only ever seemed to show Therion.  It only graced his handsome features in the private moments between them when they took another excruciating step closer to—something, something that usually wound pleasant and enticing around Therion’s heart.  Now it sat like a dead weight in his chest.  Cyrus genuinely meant every word.  Therion had never felt further from him.  “Perhaps we’ve finally found the element you were truly meant to wield—”

“ _Shut up_!”

Therion’s elbow connected with Cyrus’s gut and the feeling inside him snapped completely, cut through the middle by his own hand, with his own dagger.  Like floodgates opened, cold, murky emptiness instantly expanded outwards from Therion’s core, the deluge smothering him just like that awful dark magic had smothered Gareth to suck the life from him.  The pungent vitriol of it infringed upon his consciousness again, dragging him under even as it stroked falsely sweet against the inside of his mind, coaxing, asking, _do you want to hurt him?_

 _No_ , Therion thought fervently in response, but even then it was hard to smother the horrific, sinister urge.  It hurt.  It hurt so much, worse than any amount of broken bones and left-behind scars.  The pain was a hollow, cold thing in his heart, eating away at him, turning him black and withered from the inside out and twisting his magic, his thoughts, his affections, leaving them unstable, teetering on the verge of breaking altogether.

So he ran.  

He shoved away from Cyrus and ran from the despondent, confused voice calling after him.  He ran through his companions, twisting out of their reach with desperate instinct.  He ran out of the caverns and all the way to back Wellspring, sprinting through the desert heat until his lungs should have sent searing spears of pain through his chest, until he should have collapsed from it—but he felt nothing.  The pain, the hurt, the physical and mental aches were all gone, replaced with an expanding, cavernous nothingness.  With every step he took, the vacuum grew bigger, hollower, blacker, until there was nothing left but Therion himself, wavering on the gulf’s edge.  He slammed the inn room door behind him, and the ground crumbled, and he welcomed the fall.

 

* * *

 

In the weeks that followed, Therion seemed to revert to the snarling, isolated, distrustful beast the group had first met, and it showed.  He hid away almost constantly, taking meals and rooms alone, and he had decided without consulting his companions to make for Northreach where he’d learned Darius now had his base of operations.  They felt they had no choice but to follow him, if only because he’d have surely gone alone otherwise.

Therion led them in an exhaustingly straight line towards Northreach.  He barely ate or slept, took the front lines of every battle with a vengeful kind of madness, and his growing array of magic, which he had been so proud of, which he had loved to play and show off with even in the midst of a fight - it was gone.  His blinding arcs of flame and powerfully slicing gales soon became distant memories, as Therion seemed intent on using dark magic and only dark magic.  But he never looked _happy_ using it.  There had always been a sort of excitement about him when he channelled the other elements, but the best he could manage with the power of the dark rune was a vaguely uncomfortable grimace.  Still, his skill with it was undeniable, cutting down any enemies that stood before him with ease, so whatever qualms the group may have had remained unvoiced.  As close as they had become during their travels, the new walls that had suddenly sprung up around Therion seemed unscalable, and he was wholly unwilling to let any of them attempt.  Even Cyrus, the first one to have wriggled his way through the cracks and take up residence on the inside of Therion’s defences, was completely shut out - not that he seemed eager to rectify that, with how much he had changed as well.  Quiet and withdrawn, he looked to have closed himself off almost as much as Therion had.  He spoke less, wore a frighteningly blank expression more often than not, and could only muster up the most unconvincing of false smiles when prodded.  It was disheartening.  The professor had been a constant source of comforting background noise, muttering to himself when he wasn’t talking someone else’s ear off, and he had always been the one to motivate everyone else with his earnest kindness in offering to assist them with their own journeys, content to put his own on the backburner if it meant helping his newfound friends and exploring the world as he did so.  To have that taken away all of a sudden...the glum hush that fell over them was _unbearable_.

But Therion pressed on in resolute frenzy, and so they followed.

 

* * *

 

It took days for Ophilia to convince him to rest.  That it was Ophilia alone who managed it at all was troubling, but she was the only one safe from his ire.  Even in this state he seemed unable to be mean to her.  She brought him meals and tended to his reckless wounds when he wouldn’t let anyone else near him.  The group were thankful he seemed to have retained at least that much sense.

It was Stillsnow they stopped in, a final break before heading onto Northreach.  Therion forwent dinner altogether in favour of isolating himself again, the slam of his room door echoing down the inn corridor.  They all winced at the noise, but no one more so than Cyrus, who visibly flinched and shrank back as though it resounded in his skull.  He excused himself in a small voice and headed to his own room, and Primrose watched him go, drumming her fingers on the table.

Therion had been avoiding Cyrus more than any of the others, that much was obvious.  Just that morning, as they had all traipsed tired and cold through the Frostlands, Cyrus had fended off a group of monsters with an ice spell.  Therion had followed it up immediately with his own ice rune, moving in sync with Cyrus, like it was an automatic response.  The beasts fell, and Therion looked at his hands with the same wide-eyed expression that his companions turned upon him, as though he was as surprised as they were that he had successfully channeled something other than dark magic - and the element he had always complained was so unpleasant, at that!  Cyrus had taken a step forward, for a moment looking like his old self, poised to say something...and then he had remembered, and stopped, and met Therion’s eyes with a timidity that was sorely out of place on him.  They looked at each other for an uncomfortable stretch, and then Therion breezed past him and kept walking, drawing his hands under his poncho and out of sight. 

Primrose didn’t know why or what had happened, only that it had something to do with Therion’s newfound talent for dark magic.  She was a wielder of the element herself - it spewed elegantly spiteful from her fingertips, woven into her dancing like a hidden blade, making her feel powerful with vindication - but when she had tried to approach him about it he had almost bitten her head off.  Something was glaringly wrong, but since he shunned her, shunned his magic tutor, shunned his friends altogether, no one knew what.  And the only one who could potentially find out the truth seemed complacent, if troubled, to be so obviously rejected.

Primrose decided swiftly and emphatically that she had had _enough_.

 

Her chair screeched on the tile as she shoved away from the table and stood up, a determined scowl across her pretty features that had even Olberic tactfully avoiding her eyes.  H’aanit raised her cup in intuitive solidarity, and Primrose nodded her acknowledgement before she pivoted on her heel and stalked away down the corridor.  That the other patrons milling in the common room hastily moved out of her way said much for the aura of potentially murderous conviction her lithe frame exuded.

“I wouldst not like to be on the receiving ende of that,” H’aanit commented.  Linde chirped in agreement.

 

* * *

 

Cyrus’s room was closer, and also a safer bet.  Primrose was less likely to get a door slammed in her face if she went to him first.  Not only that, but even if he hadn’t been doing much of it recently, Cyrus liked to _talk_.  She could probably weasel some information out of him on just what had happened between him and Therion - because something _had_ happened, she was sure of it.  Therion had been shaken after the encounter with Darius, but she had expected Cyrus to wheedle him back to normal with smiles and whispered secrets and hands settled in the small of Therion’s back.  Instead, it seemed something - something Primrose hadn’t seen - had driven them apart.  It incensed her not to know, because it meant she couldn’t drive her knife straight into the heart of whatever it was and get it over with and let the two imbeciles get back to their ridiculously slow courtship.

She had just raised her hand to knock when she heard the sobs.  The sound was instantly, uncomfortably familiar.  Her mind flashed back to herself some years before, hidden away in private sorrow far from the prying eyes who might judge her or brand her weak for it.  Queasy melancholy gripped her gut, and she dropped her hand.  She could picture with horrific clarity the way she used to clamp her fingers over her trembling lips to muffle her weeping, and how she would curl in on herself and draw her grazed knees up to her chin to provide some hollow attempt at comfort.

But this wasn’t her crying.  This was _Cyrus_.  This was the man who wore his heart on his sleeve breaking that very heart alone in a cheap inn room.  To even think of him in such a pathetic state of despondency filled Primrose with such overwhelming grief that she almost couldn’t stand it.  Her fists trembled, and she grit her teeth and kept walking, unforgiving purpose driving her every step.  She had never been one to grieve for long.  She had always preferred to act.

 

* * *

 

Therion nearly hit the ceiling as his door bounced off the adjacent wall, juddering ominously on its hinges.  He unsheathed his dagger automatically, but when he recognised Primrose standing in the doorway he put it away again.  (Though when he caught her expression, darker than any magic he could ever hope to conjure, he began to think perhaps he should have stayed armed.)

“We need to talk.”  Primrose stepped into the room without being invited and closed the door behind her.  It didn’t sit quite straight in the frame.

“I don’t think we do,” Therion huffed.  He turned his gaze away, but Primrose didn’t miss the glimpse of defeated recognition that flashed across his face for a split second.  He _knew_ why she was here.

She came closer.  Her shoes clicked hauntingly across the floor.  “I wasn’t asking.”

“Listen, Prim, I really don’t wanna hear it right—”

The _crack_ of Primrose’s palm meeting Therion’s cheek echoed off the walls of the small room.  He stopped, words and thoughts both escaping him at the intensity of the stinging heat blooming in his face.  He raised hesitant fingers to the mark, pushing against the sensitive skin, and Primrose watched with spiteful triumph as his one visible eye widened with undisguised shock.

“Sit down,” she ordered.  Therion sat.

 

“This has gone on long enough,” Primrose began, pacing.  “It has to stop.  I don’t know what happened between you two, but I _do_ know that you’re being selfish.  You’re acting like a _child_ , Therion, and apparently you have the mind of one as well if you can’t see how much you’re upsetting Cyrus—”

“ _I_ upset _him_!?” Therion shot back, finally finding his voice where it had been buried beneath Primrose’s tirade.  “You weren’t even there!  You have no idea what happened!”

“No, I don’t!  None of us do, because you won’t talk to us!  You’ve completely shut us out and started running yourself into the ground instead, and maybe that’s how you dealt with your issues before, but _not_. _Any.  More._ ”

Therion scoffed and turned his face away, but Primrose just leaned down from her standing vantage point until she was mere inches from him.  He could smell her perfume.  It was choking.

Her voice was hushed, softer, as she continued, “Out of all of us, Cyrus deserves this silent treatment the least.  The man has given you nothing but kindness and patience since the very beginning, when he had no real reason to.  You owe it to him to offer the same in return.”  Therion was silent.  Primrose groaned and backed away again, exasperation returning.  “Give him the chance to apologise, Therion!  He’s _crying_.”

“I know!” Therion hissed, springing to his feet.  Primrose was forced back a step, her eyes going wide at his words and the sudden, intense misery in his gaze.  He said again, quieter, “I _know_.”

It was impossible.  It should have been impossible.  It had to be impossible, but Therion could _feel_ Cyrus crying.  He could hear the pathetic sniffles like they were right next to him, could feel the tremors in Cyrus’s shoulders as though it was his own body.  Since their falling out, Therion had been wracked with a guilt and anguish that he couldn’t rightly understand, that felt foreign beneath his own bitter, juvenile anger; but at the same time there was this longing, this _want_ to be reunited with Cyrus that pulled at him like a string tied around his very soul.  It was a strange, alien feeling, and stranger still was how he could almost sense a mirror image of that feeling, as though he could imagine with disturbing realism the very same desire from Cyrus’s point of view, his own yearning for Therion.  The discomfort of it had kept Therion from sleeping, the impulse to give in crawling hot under his skin night and day.

He knew Cyrus was crying.  He knew Cyrus had been crying for days.  Therion looked away from Primrose’s puzzled expression once more, feeling like crying himself as he repeated, barely above a whisper this time, “I know.”

 

* * *

 

It was more the realisation of this new, peculiar mix of emotions and the thirst to understand them than the glowing handprint on his cheek that had Therion hovering outside Cyrus’s room a few minutes later.  (Though Primrose had been responsible for both, and had all but manhandled him out of his room despite his objections anyway.  If this went well, he supposed he owed her some thanks.)

Therion gave no more than a cursory knock before entering, closing the door behind him again as soon as he crossed the threshold, before he could change his mind.  Cyrus looked up from the bed at the intrusion.  It was obvious he’d been crying even without Therion’s strange foreknowledge: his eyes were wide and wet, rimmed red, and he hastily unfolded himself from where he’d been near enough curled into a ball as it sank in just who was standing in the doorway.  He swiped a hand across his face, sniffing loudly, and the futile attempt to make himself look composed made Therion’s heart ache in his chest.

Therion fidgeted, feeling uncomfortable, but the tug he’d felt before was stronger now, tense, urging him closer to Cyrus, and he took a step forward without really meaning to.

“I’m sorry,” he said, at the same time as Cyrus blurted it back at him.  Their twin apologies hung between them, united words lapsing into silence.  Therion stared.  Cyrus stared, too.  It had to have been a coincidence.  Never mind how natural it had felt to speak his feelings and have Cyrus echo them back.

Surprisingly, Cyrus smiled.  It was a wobbly, watery little thing, but it was genuine, and something stirred inside Therion that he hadn’t felt in more days than he could count - a small tingle in his fingertips, warm and comforting and starting to spread.  He took another step, and then another, feeling the pleasant sensation get stronger as the distance between them shortened.  And then, he was sitting next to Cyrus on the bed: one final, immeasurable foot of distance between them.  And he started to speak.

“That magic,” he said, “that dark magic...I hate it.  It—it scares me.  It reminds me of stuff I’d rather forget, and it’s so strong…”  Even talking about it seemed to summon it, and Therion felt the familiar, clingy nausea begin to claw at his stomach.  He swallowed hard.  “It’s stronger than anything else I can do.  It’s like I don’t even have to try.  It just happens, like—like it’s using me more than I’m using it, like I’m just some sort of vessel without any control over it.  You said it was a ‘natural aptitude’, but it doesn’t feel like that at all.  It feels like...like it’s pulling me back to who I used to be.  Away from who I am now.  Away from—”

He paused before it could tumble out with the rest of his admission, shifted to look at Cyrus instead.  Cyrus simply looked back, quiet for once; patient as always.

“You hurt me,” Therion continued, gaze sinking back to his feet.  “I thought you were...different.  I thought you would understand.  I thought you would see how much I hate it, how much I hate that I’m _good_ at it.  But in that moment, you didn’t.  You were just like everyone else.  I trusted you.  I trusted someone else for the first time in years, and it felt like you betrayed me.  I know you didn’t mean to, and I know it’s on me for not talking to you about it, and for running away, but I thought...I thought you _knew_.  I don’t know how you would, but…”  He trailed off and sighed, long and shaky and frustrated at himself for not being able to put it into words.  The honesty made him feel sick as much as the bubbling dark magic inside him, his soul laid totally bare for perhaps the first time in his life.  He waited for Cyrus to cut in, to say something apt like he always did.

What he said instead was, “I’m sorry,” again, faint.  Therion’s eyes snapped to Cyrus’s face, drawn back at the sound of the voice he hadn’t heard properly in too long.  Low, intimate, meant only for Therion’s ears.  He felt sweat gather in his palms.

“I should have known," Cyrus said.  "I thought I _did_ know you.  But I've never been especially talented at reading people.  Perhaps I should stick to books."  There was a self-deprecating humour to his last statement, his voice still small and unsure but now a little more like Cyrus proper.

"How would you have known?" Therion scoffed, a little more like himself as well.  A little more like banter.  A little easier.  "I didn't tell you.  You're a lot of things, Cyrus, but a mind-reader isn't one of them."

Cyrus's eyes fluttered up to Therion's face.  They were deep indigo in the fading natural light, and gravely serious.  Therion's mouth felt dry. 

"I thought," Cyrus began, slowly, picking his words with precision as though searching a dictionary, intent on getting the meaning right, "I thought I could tell.  Sometimes it came so easily to me, Therion: your mood, your desires and needs and, and even—even if you were hungry, or too cold, I...I seemed to be able to tell, I..."  His voice faltered, carefully constructed sentences stuttering under the sudden onslaught of his words, betraying his rush to say his piece.  "I thought it was perhaps a side effect of the reaction between our magic, but that doesn't make sense; even the most outrageous hypotheses have never put forward anything like that, but—"

"Cyrus," Therion said, and Cyrus shut his mouth immediately.  "I get it."

Wide eyes.  Honest.  Endearing.  "You do?"

"Yeah, I do.  Sometimes I...felt it too.  Almost like I could tell what you were thinking."  It was too hard to look at Cyrus suddenly, so Therion stared at the door instead, his face growing warm.  "And when we...weren’t talking, it was...empty.  Like something was missing.  I couldn’t feel—couldn’t feel your magic, it’s strange, it’s like I can feel it all the time and I _couldn’t_ , I couldn’t feel anything really.  I could even use the ice rune because I couldn’t feel the cold anymore!  ...I-Is that weird?"

"Perhaps," Cyrus hummed.  He seemed entirely unaltered by Therion’s rushed confessions, simply pondering with a slight smile.  "But I don't particularly think so."

They lapsed into silence, but for the first time in an age it verged on companionable rather than uncomfortable.  Eventually, Therion piped up: “...You’re not really that bad at reading people, you know.”

Cyrus snorted.  It was such a vulgar, out-of-place sound coming from the prim professor, but as they sat together, quiet and intimate and familiar once more, it was somehow entirely fitting.  “I’m not so soft-hearted as to believe lies quite as blatant as that, Therion.”

The humorous undercurrent to his words was warm and light over Therion’s skin.  “Alright, maybe that was a stretch too far.  But—”  Therion faltered for a moment, as though he’d realised what he was about to say and thought too late to stop it.  The words slipped out past his lips whether he wanted them to or not.  “You should give yourself more credit, Cyrus.  You’re smart, and talented at magic, and—and kind, to everyone, and you have more patience than the rest of us put together.”

“What _do_ you want from me, Therion?  With all this flattery,” Cyrus laughed, angling to meet Therion’s eyes.  His were brighter now, in mood if not in colour, twinkling with mirth.

Therion swallowed.  What _did_ he want?  That same image he’d conjured some time before flashed through his mind: of Cyrus cradling his neck, leaning in, tilting his jaw at the perfect angle.

“I want,” Therion said, blinking the image away, “I want…”

He couldn’t put it into words.  He could feel the blush across his cheekbones, flaring up red like a signal beacon.  That was almost answer enough.  Impulsive, spontaneous, he reached over and put his hand atop Cyrus’s.

Straight away, it felt like a connection being restored.  There it was, something he hadn’t felt in weeks - Cyrus’s magic.  The comforting thrum of it, the steady familiar flow like an undertow beneath Therion’s own magic, guiding its fickle nature, holding it carefully just as Therion was holding Cyrus’s hand.  He didn’t know how he’d gone without it for so long, and he couldn’t tell if that thought was even his or not, or if it was coming from this strange, new sixth sense for the scholar he had acquired.  Either way, it didn’t really matter.  It was still true.

“I want to keep learning magic from you,” Therion said, the truth and a lie at the same time.

 

* * *

 

They headed for Northreach the next morning, as planned.  None of the group said anything when Cyrus and Therion exited the inn side by side, but Primrose raised suggestive eyebrows at H’aanit, who nodded her agreement.  Therion couldn’t look at either of them.

 

* * *

 

Northreach was cold and merciless, and by the time Therion had sneaked them into Darius’s hideout they were all feeling the effects of too many battles.  Alfyn passed out a round of restoratives which they knocked back gratefully as they paused for breath in a dark corner, H’aanit and Linde on watch for the moment.

The touch on Therion’s arm would have made him jump before, but he knew it was Cyrus before he even turned.

“Your goal is close at hand, Therion,” Cyrus said, voice low, head inclined.  These words were not meant to be overheard, clearly.  “Do not waver in your convictions.”

Therion smiled cockily.  An act, and they both knew it - and not just by the way he fidgeted from foot to foot.  “You can count on me.”  _I hope_ remained unsaid, but Cyrus seemed to hear it anyway, and he squeezed Therion’s arm before letting go.

 

Darius was just as repugnant as Cyrus remembered him being.  He swanned out from his hiding spot behind the Dragonstones Therion had been searching for, steps confident, smile wide and smug.  His voice was lazy, lilting as he fired jeer after jeer at Therion, but this time he didn’t rise to them.  He answered them in an even tone, looking straight ahead, meeting Darius head-on.

“I’m not here for me anymore,” Therion announced, and it was utterly satisfying the way Darius flinched at the truth of the words.  “I’m here for the people who put their trust in me.”

Darius _recoiled_ , spitting out, “You’ll just be betrayed again!”

Therion turned his back.  He met Cyrus’s eyes and smiled.  Cyrus puffed up proudly and smiled back.  “You’re right.  I might,” he admitted, but he wasn’t afraid of the possibility any longer.  (Cyrus could tell.)

Darius seethed more, his words turning harder and more hurtful, but Therion dodged them with as much ease as he escaped physical blows, cutting back with his own razor-sharp sarcasm.

“Sentimental fool,” Darius spat.

“Maybe I am,” Therion agreed, and they drew their weapons.

 

The fight was hard.  Darius was as skilled with a blade as Therion was, their movements similarly quick and effective.  Not only that, but even in the midst of battle he never stopped trying to break Therion’s spirit, berating him for being swayed by emotion even as he tried to appeal to that very side of him with admissions of how he could never hope to compare to Therion’s skills, a poor attempt at a sob story, a fairytale excuse.  But unlike before, Therion let the words slide right off of him.  He swiped unforgiving at Darius with his dagger and forced him back with the power of the elements that had now returned to their rightful place at Therion’s beck and call.

The rest of the group stuck to the rear, firing off ranged spells and attacks to chip away at Darius’s stamina and keep him from gaining the upper hand - but this was Therion’s fight.  They were content to stay out of his way and let him do what had to be done, and Therion was alright just knowing they were there watching his back.

Until they weren’t there anymore.

Therion only noticed when he felt Cyrus disappear.  The magic they shared dissolved completely, and Therion turned with a start, thinking he’d been hurt.  But he just _wasn’t there_.  None of his companions were.  The cave stretched on behind him, barren and lonely.  Only the sound of his ragged breathing bounced off the cavernous walls...and Darius’s pompous voice.

“Heh,” he laughed, arrogant, and if he hadn’t sounded so worn out himself Therion would have almost been fooled by it.  “I stole yer most precious treasure.”

Panic dropped like a stone into Therion’s gut.  He was alone again; actually alone this time.  Isolation of his own making had been bad enough - even then he had known, somewhere in the back of his mind, that his friends were still there, even if he couldn’t see them past his selfishness.  Isolation forced upon him was _horrifying_ : it made his hands tremble, his grip on his dagger and his convictions slipping.  There was no Primrose and her sisterly teasing.  There was no Ophilia with her gentle words.  There was no peppy Tressa, steadfast Olberic, serious H’aanit, reliable Alfyn.  There was no _Cyrus_.

Therion felt vulnerable.  Frightened.  _Lonely_.

Darius noticed his expression falter and rushed in, swinging his blade down in a rending arc.  Therion blocked it on muscle memory, but it wasn’t a clean defense.  Metal met metal, ringing out loud.  Without magic emboldening him, the vibration of the hit travelled up Therion’s arms, juddering his bones and forcing him back a step.  He felt brittle and frail with his magic fled from him.  Without its constant excited bubbling inside him, and without the gentling influence of Cyrus’s magic there, too...Therion felt hollow.

Darius’s smile was sinister and almost as sharp as his blade as he twisted, catching Therion’s arm.  The pain was enough to snap Therion to attention and he hopped out of range of Darius’s follow-up, clutching at his wound.  It wasn’t deep.  The next one would be.

 

It was impossible to tell how long they fought, blades dancing and clashing and screeching, hissed words and threats passing between them, Therion growing more desperate and clumsy as Darius grew more bold.  He still couldn’t feel his magic, his friends, _Cyrus_ , and he never used to believe in the Gods but now he sent hurried prayers to Aelfric, to Aeber, to Balogar, to anyone who was listening to grant him something, _anything_ to gain the upper hand.

Dark magic flickered to life in the soles of Therion’s feet, and he almost tripped over it.   _Anything but that_ , he pleaded as another part of him whispered, _Kill him_ , alluring and sweetly simpering.  Without thinking, his hand shot out just as Darius raised his arm to strike once more, sliding neatly into the opening and cutting a harsh red line across Darius’s chest.  He grunted and stumbled back, defences and focus both broken, and Therion heard the pained groans of his companions, returned from wherever they’d been spirited away to, at the same time as he felt his magic rush back into him with a fury.  It stole his breath away with its intensity before settling down into its usual pulsing rhythm around his body.  He spun to face his friends, relief flooding him—

He caught sight of Cyrus first—

Wincing, holding his side—

His staff slipping from his grasp—

 _Injured_ —

The dark magic that had murmured promises and ideas so charmingly before now _roared_ , commanding, consuming Therion’s entire being as he saw red - the red of the blood seeping from between Cyrus’s fingers, the red of Darius’s hair when he whirled on him, dagger punitive and unrelenting and branded with Balogar’s dark rune.

He struck true faster than Darius could react, plunging his knife with loathsome ease between his ribs.  Shadows spewed from the incision, curling around Darius as he collapsed: first his arms, then his legs, then his entire body, just like Gareth.

Unlike Gareth, Darius wasn’t dead when the magic faded.  He lay, broken and bleeding and on the brink, but still alive.

Therion raised his knife.  For the first time in his life, he saw fear flash across Darius’s face.  Fear of him.  It felt _good_.  He smiled—

—and felt a hand on his arm, and a rush of compassion, pleasant and calming, and he halted immediately.  He looked to Cyrus at his side, weakened and wounded but alive.  Cyrus looked back.  Neither of them spoke.  Therion dropped the knife.

When he glanced back at Darius, all the lust for retribution had gone out of him, and Therion’s gaze was instead pitying, almost regretful.

“Farewell, partner,” he said in a cold voice, and left Darius to die alone.

 

* * *

 

Therion and Cyrus walked out together.  The others had gone on ahead, trusting Therion to carry out his own justice and Cyrus to support him, but now the two men supported each other, leaning hard against one another as they favoured their respective injuries.  Therion’s hand shook, and Cyrus took it without looking.  He was warm.  He was always warm.  Inside Therion, the darkness fizzled away, replaced by the oldest, most familiar flicker of fire magic.

Therion thought, _I don’t want to use dark magic again._

Cyrus replied, _out loud_ , “I’ll see to it you don’t have to.”

They walked for a full minute longer before the realisation hit them—both, together, as one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> owo what's this??  
> :3c
> 
> hmu on twitter @QueenNeehola!


	6. Light (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The second principle of magic," he continued, turning his eyes back to the page, "states that things which have once been in contact with each other will continue to act on one another...from a distance...after physical contact is severed…" With Cyrus’s voice trailing off and realisation unfolding simultaneously in both their brains, their eyes met, bright yet hesitant with nervous epiphany. Cyrus said, wonder thick in his voice, "That sounds like…"  
> "Us," Therion finished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!! sssoooo light was supposed to be the end...and it _is_ , but i've had to split it into two parts because it's just so dang long!! this first part alone is over 8k words!! i'm still working on part 2 but hopefully it won't take me too long...
> 
> there is a part in this chapter where the tense shifts from past to present and then back again. yes it is deliberate and no i'm not just stupid. although the amount of times in my life i've accidentally switched to a different tense mid-fic and then had to go back and edit several thousand words might say different
> 
> as always thanks to my goob fwiend [sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarExo) for being my cytheri muse and my co-author basically. i wuv u
> 
>   **!!! this chapter contains spoilers for cyrus's chapter 3 !!!**

“Something’s wrong.”

“Huh?”  Tressa looked up.  At her feet, Linde growled at Therion’s tone, decisive with alarm as he stood.

“Something’s not right,” he repeated, gripping the edge of the table like it was the only thing keeping him from running out of the tavern.

Alfyn chimed in, “I know you’re worried, but he’s just gone to scope out that headmaster guy’s old place, right?  That Lucia girl is even with him. He’ll be fine—”

“Quiet.”  Alfyn shut his mouth immediately at H’aanit’s command.  “Therion hast shown great intuition when it cometh to matters concerning Cyrus of late.  Perhaps we shouldst listen.”

Around the table, the others nodded, rising to their feet with him.  Therion couldn’t stop the flush that began to rise in his face - though he and Cyrus hadn’t spoken in explicit terms of the strange new link between them that had them sometimes sharing perceptions, emotions, and even _thoughts_ , it had become obvious enough to the rest of the group as well that comments like H’aanit’s were now commonplace.  Primrose, especially, had taken a new lease of life with her brazen mockery, teasing Therion constantly about his and Cyrus’s “conversations through glances alone.”  She wasn’t entirely wrong, though, so it was hard to reprimand her for it.

But Therion’s embarrassment was forgotten as he left the tavern with his six companions in tow, breathing hard in the thin Stonegard air and taking the steps two at a time.  He could feel beneath his own frantic drive an undercurrent of panic that didn’t belong to him, poorly masked by false calm and logic. Cyrus was in trouble, and Therion had to get to him.

* * *

It had been a few weeks since Therion’s final encounter with Darius, and with the Dragonstones returned to their rightful owner and the fool’s bangle finally off his wrist, Therion had no further pressing matters to attend to.  No longer tied down by his past nor his sense of duty, he was free to do whatever he wished.

So he stayed with Cyrus.

The others did, too - their own personal journeys more or less taken care of, they turned upon Cyrus and voiced their willingness to help him with his own.  He had looked somewhat bashful at their eagerness, since finding a missing book was hardly on the same level as Ophilia’s holy duties, or H’aanit’s search for her master.  But they soon found that it wasn’t a simple matter in the slightest: with such words as blood crystals and necromancy casually being thrown about, the group - and Therion in particular, his palms sweating when he looked upon the room of human sacrifices they had discovered beneath Quarrycrest - were glad they hadn’t let Cyrus pursue this particular mystery by himself.

Technically, they _had_ already found the book - or at least a translated copy that they had then traced to Stonegard, where Cyrus learned from the Royal Academy headmaster’s assistant, Lucia, that the man himself was apparently dabbling in the dark arts.

She had been following them in silence for the Gods only knew how long before she’d revealed herself and thrust this information upon them out of the blue.  Therion had immediately distrusted her for it. He was sneaky by trade, and knew a fellow sneak when he saw one. But Cyrus had shushed him and gone off with her to investigate, and Therion had been left to stew in his own misplaced anxiety until he returned.

Not so misplaced, as it turned out.

* * *

Therion burst through the door of the abandoned house, calling Cyrus’s name...and barrelled straight into the back of a girl, who in turn stumbled into the chest of the man in front of her with a squeak.

“Oh, my,” Cyrus said, extracting the girl from himself and placing her at arm’s length.  She turned pink. Therion didn’t like that at all. Who was this girl, that Cyrus would—

_(Cyrus?)_

_(Cyrus!)_

“Cyrus,” Therion exclaimed, profoundly.  Cyrus blinked recognition at him just as the rest of their companions crowded into the entrance hall, all in various stages of breathlessness at rushing to keep up.

“See?” Alfyn wheezed.  “Told you he was fine.”

“Well, in truth,” Cyrus differed, smiling sheepishly, “I wouldn’t have been fine if not for Therese here.”  The girl seemed to recover from her demure dithering and puffed up at Cyrus’s praise. Therion liked that even less.  “She is one of my students. She seemingly knew I’d be in danger if I came here, though I have yet to find out how she came to possess this information.  We were just discussing that when you all appeared.”

Therion was on Cyrus in an instant, closing the gap between them in a few frantic steps and taking Cyrus by the arm, throwing back his coat, looking for injuries.  “I,” he said, _(I knew you were in danger, too_. _)_   “I told you not to trust that Lucia woman!  She wouldn’t have snuck around behind our backs if she had any sort of good intentions, I _said_ , but you didn’t listen—”

Cyrus placed a gentle hand over Therion’s and he halted immediately, gaze drawn upward to Cyrus’s eyes.  “I know. I’m sorry. I’m alright.” His palm and voice were both warm. Therion was instantly pacified. He opened his mouth again to say something else - what, he didn’t know, but an inexplicable urge to admit and confess and be truthful was rising within him, and his grip tightened as Cyrus blinked slowly down at him.  “Cyrus, I—”

“That’s enough,” said a voice.

It wasn’t a voice that Therion recognised, but Cyrus did, and as the two of them turned as one they saw a man _(Headmaster Yvon)_ restraining the girl who had helped Cyrus _(Therese)_.  He sneered at Cyrus’s attempts to stop him with words and disappeared further into the house, and Cyrus’s anger and dutiful need to rescue his pupil were evident even beyond the sudden tension in his frame as he took the lead.  The rest of the group followed close behind, but none closer than Therion.

* * *

Yvon had turned himself into a beast.

Using one of the blood crystals the group had uncovered previously, he became a huge, hulking monstrosity, all bulging eyes filled with red rage and a sickening purple tinge to his skin, veins popping as he lunged at them.  With all reasoning gone he reverted to what base instinct was left in him - hurt, maim, kill - and his huge fist slammed down with a speed that belied his massive frame, splitting the party in twain. The further group immediately moved to help Therese, whom Yvon had strung up, unconscious and helpless; while the closer four - Cyrus, Therion, Ophilia and Primrose - drew their weapons to face their monstrous foe.

Two men flanked Yvon, as though protecting him, as though he needed protecting in his current state.  No one was protecting them from Primrose Azelhart though, as she twirled herself into an elegant tornado of dark magic and deadliness and dispatched them both simultaneously, their bodies crumpling like empty sacks at the force of her attack.  She met Therion’s eyes for a brief moment and they shared a smile, before he hopped back out of Yvon’s range and in front of Ophilia, his dagger held poised to defend her as she cast magic. Moments later, a shining magical seal appeared beneath Yvon and he was showered in beams of holy light, letting out a hideous roar and stumbling backwards, instinctively curling away from the brightness like a wounded animal.  _A weak point then_ , Therion thought, and caught Cyrus nodding from the corner of his eye.  Cyrus was staying well out of the fight for now, as he often did, examining the enemy from as many angles as he could and trying to decipher its weaknesses.  Therion turned back to Yvon and dashed in, slipping under his huge arms to stab at the thick skin on his torso. The cuts were shallow, yet in rapid succession they were enough to make Yvon recover from his daze and swing for Therion, but he missed as Therion ducked the attack and landed another few strikes.  Yvon was fast in a straight line and would be deadly if he connected, but with such an unwieldy, disproportionate body he was too awkward to make full use of his strength in a close-quarters fight. Therion struck true for a third time and drew blood just as he heard Cyrus call out for Primrose's benefit that daggers would be effective in this fight.  He grinned, triumphant and knowing that his fellow knife-wielder would delight in helping to slice the monster to shreds.

 _(And fire,)_ came Cyrus’s voice again, but this time neither Primrose nor Ophilia reacted to it, and Therion suddenly found himself imagining Yvon’s skin, tough to physical force but lighting up like a pile of sticks.  His grin widened and he traced the first and most familiar rune he’d learned, calling fire into his blade with as much ease as breathing.  

Cyrus stepped into the fray at last, thrusting his arm out: blazing force erupted from his fingertips, blowing his coat back from his shoulders and hair back from his face as a veritable volcano detonated around Yvon, incinerating him.  His scream was a dreadful thing to experience - loud and screeching, half-human and half-bestial - but though the girls covered their ears Therion barely heard a thing as he launched himself, the hot updraft from Cyrus’s spell seeming to carry him high enough to slash right across the centre of Yvon’s chest.  The wound glowed red and exploded with flame anew, enough to propel Therion backwards again. He stumbled his landing, but arms encircled him from behind and righted him, and when he looked up it was Cyrus who had him. Of course it was Cyrus, smiling fondly at him like always.

“Very impressive,” he said.  Above Yvon’s pained shrieks, there was no way Therion could have heard it.  At least, not with his ears.

In front of them, Yvon crumpled, defences broken and skin smouldering.  The smell of burning flesh and rot was almost unbearable. Over Therion’s head, Cyrus shouted, “Ophilia, now!” and Therion turned in time to see her unleash the full force of her light magic; her hair glowing and her skin shimmering with it as she held it inside herself for a moment before directing it straight at Yvon.  She moved with grace and dignity, the spell channelled through her staff as easily as if it were another limb. It was beautiful.

And then Cyrus cast Lux Congerere, and Therion knew what beauty actually looked like.

With one of Cyrus’s hands still resting on his arm - the other holding his trusty tome aloft - Therion felt every molecule of the spell.  His and Cyrus’s magics were connected somehow, that fact was undeniable and had been for weeks, but with no light magic of his own to react against it, Therion experienced the full force of Cyrus’s magical energy alone.  It was at once familiar and entirely strange; the comfort and steady warmth he knew and yet something deeper, something wilder, something far, far stronger. It almost felt like—rage, hatred, regret, and when his eyes flicked up to Cyrus’s face Therion thought he saw the matching emotions there, too.  It made sense. This headmaster - this _beast_ \- had schemed and plotted behind Cyrus’s back, had threatened harm on one of his students and stolen and hoarded dangerous knowledge for himself.  It was unforgivable. But Therion had never seen such a furious expression cross Cyrus’s features. The worst he usually wore was a thoughtful frown; to see his face twisted so unpleasantly made Therion’s chest ache, made him want to think of a way to make Cyrus smile again.

But the spell itself was perfect as always, structured and devastating and bright enough that Therion had to shield his eyes altogether, turning automatically into Cyrus, Cyrus just as automatically holding him there.  This close, the magic seemed to pulse right out of the scholar’s body, hitting Therion like a tidal wave, drenching him in light, in magic, in Cyrus.

It felt incredible.  Therion loved it. Therion wanted it.  For a moment he thought, maybe, that it would inspire something in him; that he would have a burst of epiphany and feel light magic bubbling up inside him just as his dark magic had done.  He hadn’t used dark magic since Darius’s death, and Cyrus had kept his word that he wouldn’t let him, polishing and practising his own sorcery so that if Primrose was not available he would always be prepared if dark magic was what was needed, without relying on something that so clearly made Therion uncomfortable.  It was...nice, being accommodated like that. Had it been anyone else, Therion would have been embarrassed to ask, _wouldn’t_ have asked for that very reason.  But with Cyrus, he hadn’t had to. Cyrus had stepped up automatically in an unusually canny display of picking up on social cues, not asking, not assuming, just knowing.  Knowing, through this odd development in their relationship, through this new linking of their magic and minds - and hearts? - just what Therion needed, and when he needed it.

But no light magic burst forth from Therion, and he sighed, disappointed.

As the light faded, Yvon’s disfigured body collapsed entirely, his oversized limbs folding in on themselves, his torso leaking gore, throat burbling as he tried to speak.  And then he disintegrated entirely into nothing but putrid smoke, curling up and becoming lost in the high, black ceiling.

“The girl’s fine,” Alfyn said.  Behind him, Olberic was carrying Therese gingerly.  “Just knocked out.”

Cyrus rushed to her, fussing, the hand that had rested on Therion’s arm now hovering uselessly over Therese’s limp frame.  Therion clicked his tongue.

“Now, now,” Primrose chided, appearing at his side like the physical manifestation of his conscience.  He swore and stalked away. She was more like the irritating devil on his shoulder.

* * *

Until she awoke, Cyrus stayed by Therese’s side, and by extension Therion stayed by Cyrus’s, bringing him endless cups of tea as an excuse.  Cyrus thanked him every time.

When Therion returned with the sixth cup of tea in three hours, he heard voices, and he halted his steps and his breath, hovering just outside the doorway, close enough to eavesdrop but far enough away to remain unseen.  (Did it really count as eavesdropping, he wondered, if Cyrus knew he was there? If he concentrated he could sense Cyrus’s presence; the warmth and care radiating off him at the sight of his pupil awake and unharmed. Surely Cyrus could do the same.)

“Were it not for your actions, I would have died in that dark pit,” Cyrus was saying.  Therion frowned. That wasn’t true - if Therion had arrived just a minute earlier, the girl wouldn’t have needed to get involved at all!  “I owe you a debt of gratitude.” Cyrus’s voice was soft, genuine, and Therion bit into the inside of his cheek, clenching the mug with enough force to near enough crack it.

They kept talking: Cyrus sincerely expressing his thanks and his concern for her safety, and Therese reassuring him with the most irritating giggles Therion had ever heard.  But then her voice turned serious, and Therion almost dropped the mug when she began, words weighty with confession, “Professor, I—”  

He stepped around the door and Therese caught sight of him immediately, snapping her mouth shut and cutting off whatever awful admission she had been about to make.

Cyrus didn’t notice.  “I must continue my journey,” he went on, unabashed and oblivious, “but I will send letters.  Yes, I’ll include assignments to keep your mind sharp…”

Therion saw Therese’s face fall.  His split into a self-satisfied grin before he realised it.  She had missed her chance - missed her mark entirely by the looks of it.  It had been obvious to Therion even from their brief meeting that she thought Cyrus hung the moon and stars in the sky, and that she’d chased after him all the way to the Highlands to warn him of danger spoke to a longing beyond that of a student concerned for her teacher’s safety.  But now he looked at her with a pleasant, neutral expression, _nothing like how he looks at me_ , Therion thought, and it had become abundantly clear to her that she had never stood a chance.

Therion moved further into the room and placed the cup down, and Cyrus finally turned at the sound.  His face brightened, as did Therion upon seeing it.

“Oh, Therion.”  He stood, turning his back to Therese.  Therion’s smugness grew. “I thought it was you.  I mean, I thought I heard—er, felt—um. I’m sure you understand.”  Therion did. Therese, obviously, did not.

“I brought you more tea,” Therion said.  It was a terrible excuse, but Cyrus took the bait anyway.

“Wonderful, thank you.  I’ll drink it in the lobby.  I think it’s about time I let Therese get some more rest anyway.”

“Wait, Professor!” the girl in question cried out, pushing desperately up onto her elbows.  

Cyrus turned back to her, and Therion stupidly, jealously, panicked.  Without thinking - no, _with_ thinking, but only of the scholar’s name - he grabbed Cyrus’s hand, clumsily clasping his fingers.  Immediately, the rhythm of Cyrus’s magic flowed into him, calming and familiar but with a hint of surprise, and Cyrus paused and looked down.  His gaze dropped past Therion’s face to their joined hands. Therion blushed. Cyrus blushed, too.

So did Therese, but Therion didn’t care much about her.

However, Cyrus did.  He seemed to remember her all at once, facing her when she asked after him again, her voice much smaller the second time.  But his face betrayed his distraction, his hand still held tight in Therion’s, and Therion felt how the new information Therese shared - that Yvon had been destined for Duskbarrow, so they should head there next - barely permeated the sudden onslaught of thoughts whirling in Cyrus’s head.  Therion flushed brighter with how he seemed to be front and centre in most of them. Their link seemed that much stronger whenever they touched, and now it was almost paralysing, but he could still feel the stable, serene cadence of Cyrus’s magic, the undercurrent to everything else. He clung tighter to it, and to Cyrus’s hand.

“Th-Thank you,” Cyrus said, presumably to Therese.  “Now, pray get some rest.”

He turned on his heel and left quickly, and the last Therion saw of Therese before he was accidentally dragged by the hand after him was the expression of despondency on her face as her heart shattered into a hundred pieces.  He didn’t feel the slightest bit guilty.

* * *

The road to Duskbarrow was long, and the going slow.  If nothing else, it was helpful for Therion’s magic lessons, giving him time to polish his skills with the elements he already knew, and work on adding light magic to his arsenal as well with Cyrus's help.

Or not, as it turned out.

Cyrus's "help" was almost nonexistent: the scholar grew flustered whenever Therion so much as brushed past him, and Therion would be overwhelmed with embarrassment that only half belonged to him and images of himself holding Cyrus's hand, concentration a distant memory to both of them.  It shouldn't have been any different. They had held hands before - when Therion had learnt the lightning rune, when he had apologised to Cyrus for shutting him out, that very first night when Cyrus had taken his hand and guided him to write the fire rune - so it shouldn't have been any different this time.  But it was. Therion knew he hadn't grabbed Cyrus's hand this time out of any magical reason, nor had it been for comfort or reassurance. It had been nothing but jealousy; sudden, shameful envy of a harmless teenage girl with a crush. Therion knew it. And if he knew it, then so did Cyrus.

* * *

By the time they had made it down to the Flatlands, the group was already worn out, and so they decided as one to stop over in Atlasdam for a night or two.

It was written all over Cyrus's face that he was pleased to be home.  He really fitted in seamlessly with the town; the newer, elaborate fixings adorning the grand old buildings were reminiscent of his eccentric, layered style of dress.  Not that it was particularly eccentric here, since numerous other scholars and academy students bustled about the streets with armfuls of books and quills and paper, their robes and jackets billowing out behind them.  Atlasdam truly was Orsterra’s seat of learning and Cyrus was truly at home here, evident in the way he warmly greeted everyone he recognised as they passed. Therion had travelled through the town a few times in the past - scholars were notorious for keeping a tighter hold on their tomes than their coin purses - but he had never liked it.  He’d always found its people pompous, its atmosphere stifling and scented with parchment and ink. Now though, as he watched Cyrus get collared by an old woman who called him _honey_ and ignored his ruffled protests and fondly pressed some sort of cloth-wrapped gift into his hands, Therion thought he could grow to like Atlasdam very much.  It might be nice to hang around for a while, once everything was over.

Seeing Ophilia heading for the library, Therion remembered something he wanted to ask her and took off after her, and so he missed the way Cyrus glanced up at his retreating form, eyes round with curiosity.

* * *

“It’s rare that you seek me out,” Ophilia remarked as she plucked a book from the shelf.  “But I’m happy to be of help. What do you need?”

Therion cleared his throat.  He suddenly felt awkward. “I want you...to help me learn light magic.”

Ophilia’s hand froze outstretched, midway to selecting another book.  She gaped at Therion for a moment before remembering herself, schooling her expression into something more neutral.  “Me? Whatever for? I thought the Professor usually assisted you with your magic.”

“He does, but…”  Therion fumbled for the right words as Ophilia led him over to a table, sitting opposite him with her chosen books piled neatly to one side.  “We’ve hit a wall. The usual way he teaches me doesn’t seem to work anymore. We just end up getting...distracted, if anything.”

“I see,” Ophilia said.  Her cheeks turned a pale pink, and she looked away demurely.  It took Therion a moment to realise why. She had been spending an awful lot of time with Primrose recently; Primrose the Tease, Primrose the Gossip, Primrose who had her own unique suspicions and ideas about the nature of Cyrus and Therion’s relationship.  Ophilia didn’t see at all! She’d been poisoned, her head filled with obscene ideas by a smiling witch in dancers’ garb! Therion was too embarrassed at the realisation to correct her though, and instead studied the grain of the table with an intensity that would have put shame to any scholar.

“A-Anyway,” he jabbered, “I know you’re an expert with light magic, so I thought you’d be the person to ask.”

“An expert?” Ophilia chuckled.  _Change of topic: successful._   “I don’t know about that, but I’ll do my best.  What is it that you want to know, exactly?”

“How do you... _do_ light magic?”  When she blinked blankly at him, Therion sighed.  “Is there a, a feeling, or a certain memory, or something that helps to trigger it?”

Ophilia looked pensive, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in one hand, the other drumming her fingers against the tabletop lightly.  It was always nice to see casual Ophilia, forgoing the grace and strict posture she usually carried herself with to allow herself to be a normal young woman for a while, spending free time with her companions and forgetting her duties as cleric and Flamebearer.  Therion enjoyed her presence, her uplifting comments and her gentle demeanour, and he harkened back to that first night he had spent learning under Cyrus, when he had left stubborn and embarrassed and wishing he had gone to Ophilia for lessons instead. Oh, how different his life would have been if he had!  Perhaps he would have forged this strange, magic link with her instead, and been able to feel what she felt, intuit her emotions without having to think about it. For some reason, the thought made his stomach churn uncomfortably.

"Well," she said slowly, "I find that faith helps me."  Therion's face fell comically fast. "No, no—not just religious faith!  That is very important to me, but it's only part of it. My faith in my family, and my friends," she gestured at Therion, and he felt himself begin to turn red at being referred to as such, "is also a powerful thing.  So I suppose that's what helps me channel my magic, if I had to say. Does that help?"

Therion scrunched up his face.  "Not...really."

Ophilia hummed a thoughtful sound.  “Do you have anyone or anything that you believe in without question?  Some sort of personal conviction, perhaps; something that drives you. Or someone that you trust unconditionally, or that you love dearly?”

 _Cyrus_ , Therion’s brain responded ludicrously quickly.  _Cyrus_ , it said, resolute and unflinching, to all of Ophilia’s suggestions, _Cyrus_.

“Yes?” Cyrus said, appearing from behind a bookshelf.  Therion almost fell out of his chair.

“Oh, Professor,” Ophilia greeted.  She smiled brightly as he approached.  “I didn’t know you were here.”

Cyrus explained, “I had requested to look through the archives for some information.  I was just on my way to leave again when I heard Therion call my name, rather loudly. And in a library, of all places!  Is everything quite all right?”

He cocked his head.  Ophilia cocked hers, too.  They both looked at Therion.  Therion looked away.

“Professor,” Ophilia said, gently, “Therion didn’t call for you.  In fact, I didn’t hear anyone calling your name.”

“Hm?  But I’m sure it was Therion’s voice I—  Oh.” Therion heard the exact moment the penny dropped.  “Oh, I-I see. I do apologise - it seems I was mistaken. Please excuse me.”

To Ophilia, it probably looked like Cyrus politely excused himself and left.  To Therion, who could sense the urgency in his steps, there was no such illusion: Cyrus was _running away._

In the next moment, with his chair screeching on the polished floor and a hurried goodbye to Ophilia, Therion was following him.

* * *

“Cyrus, wait.  Wait!”

Therion caught up easily, yet Cyrus only paused when he grabbed his wrist.  His palm tingled at the touch. “Wait,” he said again, and this time Cyrus did wait, turning to Therion hesitantly.  “You really heard me.”

“...Yes,” Cyrus agreed.

“But I didn’t _say_ anything.”

“Yes,” Cyrus agreed again.

Therion sighed and dropped his wrist.  Cyrus rubbed at it absently, and for a moment Therion thought he felt the touch at his own wrist.  “This keeps happening. This...this—what _is_ this?” he asked, shaking off the feeling and gesturing between them.  “It even happens when neither of us are using magic! When we’re nowhere near each other!”

“I...I don’t know, Therion.  I’ve never heard of anything like this before.  I thought I might find some answers in the library archives, but…”  Cyrus didn’t have to finish the sentence for Therion to know he hadn’t.  “I do have some books at home which discuss the basic principles of magic in great detail.  Perhaps there may be some interpretation of them that I’ve overlooked, and we may be able to glean some answers from—”

“We?” Therion asked, and Cyrus spluttered.

“I—I mean, I...I’m not quite sure _what_ I meant, but, well, two heads are better than one, I suppose,” he babbled, going pink.  “A-And since it concerns you as well, I thought that you might like to…”

“I’ll come,” Therion said before either of them could change their minds.

Cyrus looked at him, embarrassment suddenly forgotten, his eyes wide with wonder.  After a beat of silence, he said, “Very well, then. Follow me,” like Therion was ever going to do anything else.

* * *

Cyrus’s home was smaller than Therion imagined it would be.  Not _small_ by any means, but Therion had assumed it would be a grandiose, standalone residence that rivalled the rest of Atlasdam’s imposing, antique architecture.  Instead, Cyrus lived in a perfectly functional newer build, nestled in a neat row of other houses much the same, their gleaming brickwork and uniform construction seeming too unfittingly modern for both the city and Cyrus himself.  Therion was almost disappointed until Cyrus unlocked the door and let him in.

The inside was chaos.  Organised chaos, if the way Cyrus hung his jacket on the back of a door among at least three others and stepped out of his shoes to nudge them under a side table was any indication, but Therion couldn’t make heads nor tails of the apparent meaning behind the papers filled with Cyrus’s handwriting stacked haphazardly at almost every corner or the piles of cushions that had escaped the confines of the sofa to instead make a break for it across the sitting room floor (if there was indeed any meaning at all - the thought struck him suddenly that perhaps Cyrus was just secretly _messy_.  And wasn’t _that_ a thought).  And the _books_ \- Therion couldn’t fathom why Cyrus ever needed to visit the library at all, when the books in his personal collection must have outnumbered it a dozen to one.  He counted thirteen scattered on the stairs alone. On the _stairs_!

Cyrus at least had the decency to sound a little sheepish as he said, “I’m sorry for the mess.  I’m not used to entertaining guests, and it’s been quite some time since I was last home, as you know.  I would offer to fix you a drink, but…”

They passed the kitchen, and Therion saw a coffee mug in the sink, stained with the dregs of months-old morning coffee.  “I’m not thirsty,” he decided.

“Make yourself at home,” Cyrus said, heading for what Therion assumed used to be a small dining area, but which looked to have been repurposed into a study.  That was a much more apt use of space in the household of Cyrus Albright. “There are some more books which may be relevant upstairs in the guestroom, if you’d like to have a look through them.  If not, well, I shan’t be long.”

He had already turned away by the time Therion nodded.  Therion wondered if he saw it anyway.

Checking the guestroom was better than any alternative idea Therion could come up with, and having a purpose to his actions felt a little more appropriate than just exploring Cyrus’s house to sate his curiosity - not that that stopped him peering into every room he passed.  Cyrus’s home felt very cosy despite its high ceilings and large windows, with its walls painted warm shades of wine and cream, luxurious throws draped on every seat, and the permeating scent of tea and aged books hanging in the stuffy air. It was a fitting home for the man it belonged to.  Even the mess was endearing once Therion got over his surprise - that was very Cyrus, too, and it was a wonder he hadn’t realised it before. Belying his neat appearance, the Professor ultimately had a tendency to be scatterbrained, blundering and dreamy despite his earnestness and smarts. It was only right that his living space should echo that.  Therion liked it a lot. He could see himself living—

It was probably good that that particular thought of his was cut short, but probably not good that it was because he had just walked into Cyrus’s bedroom and had several new thoughts instead.

He almost turned and walked straight back out again - a bedroom was a private space, never mind that Cyrus had left the door to his wide open and welcoming - but his nosiness was stronger than his uncertainty, and before he really knew what he was doing he was across the threshold and trespassing somewhere he definitely shouldn’t be.

Cyrus’s room was, much like the rest of the house, a mess.  Books had long since been yanked from their rightful places on the shelves lining one side of the room, and instead heaped in wobbling pyramids on the floor.  Therion plucked one from a pile and leafed through it, surprised to find that it was a novel. The idea of Cyrus reading fiction for pleasure was a novelty, since he usually had his nose buried in textbooks and tomes on magic and academia.  Picturing him engrossed in stories (of fictional detectives solving mysteries, if the blurb was any indication) while propped up in bed at the end of a long day was—

Oh.  In bed.

Therion turned to look at Cyrus’s bed, and that was instantly the worst mistake of his life.

It looked...inviting, which was ridiculous, because it was just a bed.  An unmade bed, with wrinkled sheets and something that looked suspiciously like a tea stain on one of the pillowcases.  It wasn’t the biggest bed Therion had ever seen, nor was it the most well-crafted: one of the legs sat wonky, and was being propped up by, of course, a book.

And yet.

And yet, Therion found himself crossing the room in a few short steps, pressing his palms into the sheets and marvelling at the give of the mattress under his touch.  He had suspected that Cyrus liked luxury - it was telling in how long he soaked in the bath whenever the group checked into an inn, in how he swirled his drink of choice around his glass and took dainty sips while Alfyn and Therion knocked back their ale - and it had become increasingly obvious since Therion had stepped into his home, with all its plush furnishings and expensive-looking little oddities that had made Therion’s fingers twitch (but he had only touched, not taken, careful to put everything he picked up exactly back where he found it).  But this bed was the most luxurious thing Therion had come across so far, and he walked his hands forward, lifting his knees one by one, and unthinkingly, idiotically, _reflexively_ clambered onto it.

It was just as comfy as it looked.  Therion’s body sank down easily, burying his face in the pillows despite how his heart rate spiked and his mind screeched mortification, the thought of Cyrus walking in and catching him debasing his bed like he owned it lighting him red hot with shame.  The sheets smelled like Cyrus, exactly the same scent of lingering magic and deep fruity notes that was infused into the scholar’s cloak, and Therion had breathed it in a few times before he thought to consider why he knew what Cyrus smelled like. Or why he was face down in Cyrus’s bed.

Cyrus's voice floated up from downstairs, a soft question of Therion's name, and Therion jumped approximately eight feet in the air.

He scrambled out of the room, drawing the door hastily closed behind him just as he saw Cyrus reach the landing.

"I-I'm here," Therion said, moving with incredible speed to hover in the middle of the hall, faux innocence sitting awkward on his frame.  He tried to straighten his expression and _prayed_ that his thoughts wouldn't give away his crime.

But Cyrus just smiled brightly at him as he approached, a book tucked under one arm.  He exuded an aura of bubbly contentment, clearly enjoying being home no matter the circumstances (and less clearly, but Therion thought he felt it, Cyrus was enjoying _Therion_ being in his home).

“Did you find anything?” he asked, and _oh_ , Therion remembered, _that’s_ what he was supposed to be doing.  His face must have answered for him, because Cyrus continued, “That’s alright.  I didn’t find much myself.” He held up the book: _The Principles of Magic_ was emblazoned on the front in bronze type.  “But this book outlines the very basic ideas of magic in great detail, so it might help to give us more of an idea of what to look for next.  Would you like to go over it with me?”

Therion thought he liked that very much.  He liked it even better when Cyrus led him downstairs again and they both sat on the sofa, propped up on cushions rescued from the floor and leaning on each other as they pored over the book together.

"The first principle of magic," Cyrus read, "states that an effect resembles its cause.  I'm not sure that's very relevant in our case, although it may help to explain more about how some people - like you - can produce magic in response to an emotional reaction, so it might be worth reading up on if you're interested in—"  Therion fixed him with a look, and he cleared his throat. "My apologies. That isn't why we're here.

"The second principle of magic," he continued, turning his eyes back to the page, "states that things which have once been in contact with each other will continue to act on one another...from a distance...after physical contact is severed…"  With Cyrus’s voice trailing off and realisation unfolding simultaneously in both their brains, their eyes met, bright yet hesitant with nervous epiphany. Cyrus said, wonder thick in his voice, "That sounds like…"

"Us," Therion finished.

“If that’s the case,” Cyrus continued, straightening up with excitement at discovering a new hypothesis, “if it is magical in nature, if it does relate to this second principle of magic, then it must have started—”

“When you taught me the fire rune.”  Therion’s eyes widened further as it all fell into place.  The warmth he’d felt that night, the fire blazing in front of his eyes and inside of his veins when Cyrus had taken his hands and pressed close...hadn’t he been feeling it all along since then?  Simmering away beneath all his magic, the precursor, the start of everything; the touch of Cyrus against him sparking this bond? It had chased away the icy cold, wound warm around him like a summer breeze, had struck his pulse wild like lightning, and even when he’d been lost to the dark it had been _there_ in the back of his mind, in the depths of his soul, letting him feel Cyrus’s presence even when he hadn’t wanted to.  It always, always, led them back together, constantly drawing them closer and closer, until—

“Therion?” Cyrus said, his lips very close to Therion’s.  Therion balked and slammed a cushion into his face. When had they gotten so close?  He had no idea, and by the looks of him Cyrus didn’t know either, flushed high on his cheekbones and rubbing at his nose where the cushion had hit.  “M-My apologies, I...I don’t quite know what came over me just now.” He was lying. “Perhaps I’m just—distracted. Hungry?” His smile was squint, fake.  “Would you care to join m—”

“Yes,” Therion said, standing.

“We could discuss—”

“Yes,” Therion said again, already heading for the door.

* * *

Therion was familiar with the back alleys and dead-end corners of Atlasdam like he was with every town he had passed through at least once before, but being so blatantly out in the main thoroughfares was something else entirely.  The late afternoon sun lit the buildings in hues of gold and yellow, the faintest tinge of orange reflecting in their ornate glass windows. People bustled around, on their way to and from work and learning and errands, arms laden with bags or books or children, and with the sky turning pink around the edges above their heads the scene looked cosy and warm in all its busyness.  It was picturesque and welcoming. Therion fidgeted.

“Careful not to get lost,” Cyrus said, as though there were any danger of Therion doing so.  “Stick close to me,” as though Therion had any intention of doing anything else, especially when the light framed Cyrus like a painting, kindling a rosy glow into his face and warming the brown hues through his hair.

Cyrus led them through the crowds with practised ease.  Therion found himself picturing the professor doing this exact thing on a daily basis, half-hidden behind a stack of borrowed books yet weaving between people as elegant as a flowing stream, his feet knowing the way home automatically.  He was unsure if it was his imagination or a memory pulled from Cyrus’s head, but either way it made him smile. The awkwardness that had hung over them since the prior situation in Cyrus’s home had begun to dissipate now, the fresh air and background noise of a town full of life coaxing them instead into light-hearted enjoyment, their respective presences each a bonus to the other.  Cyrus walked Therion to the Royal Academy and pointed proudly at his office window, then past the library again, giving a brief outline of the tomes contained in the archives, and to many other landmarks that Therion already knew of. Not that he was going to tell Cyrus that. If he didn’t already know. Just like Therion knew that this guided tour was another lie, that Cyrus had no intention of extending the same courtesy to any of their other companions, and that there was another far more fitting term for this outing that neither of them wanted to admit to.

* * *

“Here,” Cyrus said.  “I thought you might like this one.”  He held out some sort of meat wrapped in cheese wrapped in more meat, barely held together in a flatbread, helpfully encased in a napkin for prime eating on the go.  It was cheap and nasty street food that he’d purchased from a stall on the edge of a large, eerily empty courtyard. Hardly the kind of thing Cyrus would normally eat - or so Therion thought, but the stall owner had called him by name and greeted him like an old friend, and he happily tucked into his own fried abomination once Therion had taken his.  Therion watched on, fascinated. Despite their connection, there was still a plethora of things he didn’t know about Cyrus.

“This is my favourite place to come to,” Cyrus admitted quietly, taking a seat on a bench.  With no better ideas, Therion sat next to him, a carefully calculated distance away. They were in a large square close to the Atlasdam walls, shadowed on three sides by trees and the fourth by buildings.  Despite the activity in the rest of the town, they were alone here, a fact that sat quietly heavy on Therion’s skin. He took a bite of his food. It was pleasantly tangy. “There are other areas like this in town, but this one doesn’t get much of the daylight, so people tend to avoid it.  It’s peaceful.” Cyrus’s voice was peaceful too, low and mellow and content. “Every so often, I like to buy myself some food, and just come here and sit for a while, and...think.” Therion’s posture softened. “This is the first time I’ve had someone to share it with, though. It’s rather enjoyable.”  Therion was inclined to agree, but instead he shoved more food in his mouth.

They sat in silence, eating and listening to the rustling of the trees and the distant, joyful whoops of playing children, until Cyrus spoke again.  “Therion.”

Therion looked at him.  He looked...wistful, his eyes dark and soft around the edges in the low light and his hair coming loose from its tie, a few stray strands dangling around his ears.  He had a strange, plaintive smile on his face. “Do you truly think this...this thing between us is purely down to our magic?”

Therion went both hot and cold at once.  “...What do you mean?”

“Don’t you think there could be something more to it?”

Hotter.  Colder. Did he—?  “L-Like what?”

“I don’t know, I…”  Cyrus sighed and scrunched the bottom of the napkin in his hand.  Abruptly, like he’d decided something, he turned to Therion, meeting his eyes immediately, like he could find his gaze without even trying.  “Can you tell what I’m thinking about right now?”

“I—  What?”

“Can you?”

Therion thought he probably could.  He closed his mouth and concentrated.  It didn’t take much - right away he felt the familiar ebb and flow of Cyrus’s magic, of his breathing, mild and stable.  He felt a slight melancholy, too, a strange yearning, and then he saw himself, reflected in Cyrus’s eyes. He saw himself, but not as he usually did - though he looked the same as always, the feelings his figure inspired were all wrong.  He had always hated how the scar across his eye made him stand out, how his hair was bright and memorable when all he wanted was to be hidden and forgotten; but now his scar was a proud reminder of his survival, his hair uniquely captivating and—( _beautiful)_ —( _d_ _elicate)_ —( _bewitching_ )—

Wrong, Therion thought, and scrambled for something else, anything else.

“You’re thinking,” he said, suddenly breathless, “about that student of yours.  Therese.”

He was, but it was more a niggle of dutiful worry in the back of his mind than a fully-formed thought, tucked away behind the clamour of ill-suited compliments.  Cyrus’s face fell. Therion looked away. “Can you tell what I’m thinking?”

He felt Cyrus looking at him for a long, uncomfortable moment.  “No,” Cyrus said. “I don’t think I can.”

He was lying again.

* * *

The walk back was quiet, with both the sun and the town beginning to settle down for the night, and the two men keeping an awkward distance.

Therion only realised when he was standing on Cyrus’s doorstep that he had followed him without thinking.  Of course Cyrus would want to spend the night in his own bed, but there was no excuse for Therion to have walked him home, to be hovering outside his door like he was waiting for—

“Would you like to come in?” Cyrus asked.  His voice was uncharacteristically small. Therion’s nod was uncharacteristically large.

He slept on the couch.

* * *

_When Therion wakes, he knows immediately that he's dreaming._

_It's always been like this for him, trapped in his nightmares with the knowledge that that's all they are - his own brain attempting to sabotage him - but unable to find a way out until the dream has run its course.  But this one doesn't seem much like a nightmare. Because Cyrus is there._

_They're standing in the main thoroughfare of Atlasdam again, illuminated by the bright sun, the citizens moving busily around them, just like they had done that afternoon.  And Therion realises, with all the inexplicable foresight that comes to a person in a dream sometimes, that it_ is _that afternoon again.  This dream, for reasons he can't understand, is replaying his da—_

 _His_ outing _with Cyrus._

_"Stick close to me," Cyrus says again - Dream-Cyrus - and because it's just a dream, because none of it's real and none of it matters, Therion stretches over and takes Dream-Cyrus's hand and sticks very close indeed.  Dream-Cyrus doesn't respond except to slot their fingers together more comfortably, and Therion's heart sings._

_The rest of the out—_ date _, it's a date—_

_The rest of the date goes much the same as the real version, with Dream-Cyrus pointing out landmarks and buying food, only with the addition of Therion pressed to his side like he had never belonged anywhere else, and soon they find themselves sitting in that lonely, shady courtyard once more._

_"Do you truly think this thing between us is purely down to our magic?" Dream-Cyrus asks, just like his real-life counterpart._

_But this time, Therion says, "No, I don't."_

_Dream-Cyrus smiles like he'd expected that answer.  Maybe he had. Maybe their bond exists even in their dreams.  "Can you tell what I'm thinking about right now?"_

_The same answers spring into Therion's mind, easy and explicit in their adoration.  This time, he doesn't lie. "Me." Dream-Cyrus's smile widens, softens. "Can you?"_

_This time, Cyrus doesn't lie either.  "Yes, I can," he says, and leans over, and kisses Therion._

_Therion feels weightless and fluttery, like he might disappear off into the sky if not for Cyrus holding his hand and sucking on his bottom lip.  It’s a new, nice feeling, comforting in a way that’s similar to Cyrus’s magic, and a hint of wild excitement akin to Therion’s. It's the most incredible thing Therion has ever felt, and he can feel from Cyrus that he thinks the same._

_They walk back to Cyrus's home, hand in hand, and hover on the doorstep like nervous teenagers after a first date, unsure of what to say or do next.  Therion stretches up, and Cyrus tilts his head obligingly, and they kiss once more._

_"Can I come in?" Therion asks against Cyrus's lips, and in response he's almost pulled off his feet and across the threshold.  It's a very clear, very enthusiastic answer._

_He doesn't sleep on the couch.  He doesn't_ sleep _, period, and neither does Cyrus, not for hours - they lie face-to-face in Cyrus's bed, amongst those sheets that hold a perfect imprint of the scholar's scent, hands joined loosely between them.  They kiss, and touch, and sigh into each other's mouths, every action chaste and shy but at the same time vivid and curious, driven by genuine want and adoration. Therion doesn't want this to ever stop.  Neither does Cyrus, he senses._

Dream-Cyrus _.  This is a dream, Therion remembers, and breaks their endless cycle of slow make-outs to pull away, melancholy guilt settling into his chest like a shackle around his heart.  Dream-Cyrus makes a noise of discontent, so uncharacteristic, so_ real _—  Blinking back to awareness—  Looking at Therion the way he always does—_

_And then—_

* * *

When Therion awoke, he knew he wasn't dreaming anymore.

He also wasn't on the couch.

Cyrus breathed softly against him, dead asleep.   Every exhalation billowed across Therion's lips, still warm and tingly from his dream, the ghost weight of Cyrus's mouth still fresh in his mind.  The imbued scent of Cyrus was stronger and more enticing than ever now, buried in his bed as Therion was and with the man himself resting scant inches from his face.  The scholar's emotions fluttered at the corners of Therion's mind, pure and unfiltered and hazy in his sleeping state: contentment mainly, a hint of relief, a touch of longing.  Then Therion saw himself in a sudden flash of mental imagery, lips locked against Cyrus's, a perfect fit.

He flung himself out of bed and shrieked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i realise very little magic-learning actually went on here and it's just "cyrus and therion are gay and awkward: the chapter", but this whole thing is "cyrus and therion are gay and awkward: the fic" so idk what u were expecting
> 
> in case anyone didn't know, the first and second principles of magic that cyrus talks about originate from james g. frazer's "the golden bough", so shoutout to my man jimmy f. for giving us this good good cytheri fuel
> 
> (follow me on twitter @QueenNeehola!)


	7. Light (Part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Soulbond?” Therion squinted. “What’s that?”  
> “Well, the book...does go into that in quite some detail.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we made it guys
> 
>  
> 
> **!!! this chapter contains spoilers for cyrus's chapter 4, and minor implied spoilers for basically everyone's endings !!!**
> 
>  
> 
> (take a shot every time i just lift dialogue straight from the game because sometimes...sometimes, it just _fits_.)

"Therion?"  Cyrus's voice was small and heavy with drowsiness as he wriggled free of the duvet, messy hair cresting over the top of it first and then his face, pillow creases etched into his right cheek.  He blinked sleepily and propped himself up on one elbow.  "Therion, where are you—"

Therion didn’t know what focused first - Cyrus’s mind, his link to Therion waking up with the rest of him to sense Therion’s racing heart, or his vision, to see the expression of horror on Therion’s face.  Either way, Cyrus adopted a similar look, tinged with budding realisation.  "Therion, were you...were we..."

"Sorry!" Therion butted in, panic pitching his voice high.  He didn't want to think about what the rest of Cyrus's question was going to be.  "I-I must have sleepwalked.  I've always been a clingy sleeper, I used to do the same to…"  He trailed off, but his mind helpfully supplied the name _Darius_.  Cyrus heard it, if the way his features softened was any indication.

* * *

Therion had told Cyrus about his past.  Of course he had.  Not long after Darius’s death, not long after their bond had made itself explicitly known, Therion had spilled his guts to Cyrus and Cyrus alone.  Cyrus hadn’t asked.

(It hadn’t even been dissimilar to their current situation, he realised with a kind of slow terror.  The inn room had only had the one bed and, drowsy and vulnerable and both newly feeding off each other’s emotions, they had lain close together in it and let their thoughts and feelings swirl together, confusing but comforting.  At the time, it hadn’t felt awkward, or charged, or wrong - it had felt like safety and solace, being that close to Cyrus, breathing him in, feeling his heat and magic and the soft buzz of his thoughts - but there had been a silent agreement afterwards that it was a one-off, that it wouldn’t be brought up again.  And it hadn’t.  Until now, when it sat conspicuously at the front of both their minds.

That night, they had come perilously close to crossing a line from which there was no going back.  Therion wondered if they had now perhaps vaulted over the line completely.)

* * *

“I-It’s quite alright.”  Cyrus sat up.  His hair was loose, all cowlicks and soft waves brushing his shoulders, and his shirt was looser still, with baggy sleeves and a wide neck.  As he leaned forward, the floaty fabric leaned with him, opening up a perfect window to his bare chest underneath.  Therion didn’t know it was possible to feel your pupils dilate, but he was positive he could pinpoint the exact moment his began to eclipse most of his eyes.

(Therion also didn’t know if Cyrus was wearing anything on his bottom half.)

“I just...had a rather peculiar dream,” Cyrus said, and Therion’s heart plummeted into his stomach.

“Oh, r-really?”

Cyrus touched a finger to his lips, drawing an absent line across the soft, pink flesh.  He looked thoughtful.  He looked dazed.  “Yes...  Therion, by any chance, did you—”

“I’m gonna go,” Therion said, and stood, and ignored the way Cyrus’s eyes followed the action with a new angle of curiosity.  “See you later.”

He slammed the door behind him and leaned against it, taking a shaky breath.  When he closed his eyes for a moment, he saw Cyrus roll over in bed, and grab one of his pillows, and press his face into it, and smile against the fabric.  His chest - Cyrus’s chest - their chests, together - bubbled happily.  Therion fled.  Cyrus didn't give chase.

* * *

The rest of the group were hanging around outside the tavern when Therion found them.  H’aanit spotted him first, and said something to the others that had Tressa turning and waving and exclaiming in a voice several decibels too loud for the morning, “Therion!  Where’ve you been?  We were starting to get worried when you and the Professor hadn’t shown up yet!”

“Well, I wasn’t,” Primrose said impishly.  Therion hated her.

“Nor I,” H’aanit agreed.  “Those two art never safer than whenst they art together.”

Ophilia chided, “Tressa, it’s not nice to pry about what people get up to in their private time.”

Alfyn failed at covering a snort with a cough.  Olberic turned away politely.

Therion hated _all of them_.  Except Ophilia.  She was just trying to be respectful.  Just as respectfully, she changed the subject: “We were just about to get breakfast together.  Would you like to join us?”

It had become a routine when they were all together to have breakfast as a group.  It was nice, usually, with even Therion’s anti-social nature easing off in the presence of food and friends.  But when he looked at Primrose’s presumptuous grin, he thought he’d rather starve.

“I’m not hungry,” he lied, and fled again.

Aimless and fidgety, Therion let his feet carry him in no clear direction through the streets of Atlasdam, past vendors setting up their wares for the day and sleepy students in skewiff uniforms trudging in packs to the Academy.  The last time he had just walked, he had ended up on the top of a hill and so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard Cyrus approach him.  _Ha_ , he thought, _no chance of that happening anymore_.

Except when he rounded into the silent, sheltered square they had sat in together the day before, Cyrus was already there.

Cyrus looked round, entirely unsurprised, and held something out to Therion.  It was one of the snacks he had bought for him before.  In his other hand, he held his own.  It was altogether a perfect replica of the previous day’s scene...and the previous night’s dream.

“I had a feeling you’d come here,” Cyrus said, smiling bashfully, “and I had a feeling you’d be hungry.”

Cyrus hadn’t run after him, but he’d caught him anyway.  Therion’s stomach rumbled.

* * *

They ate in stilted silence for a while.  Therion could feel his own restlessness reflected in Cyrus, but he steadfastly ignored it in favour of wolfing down his food.  It was only when they had both finished that Cyrus spoke up.

“We had the same dream.”  Not the most difficult of deductions, but still one that rang loud and true in Therion’s ears like a gong.  Cyrus sighed, “I’m...I’m sorry, Therion, it must have come from me—perhaps I briefly woke up in the night and saw you had climbed into my bed and my mind ran away with itself, I-I’m not sure.  I assure you it’s never happened before, but it was completely inappropriate nonetheless, and I must apologise for making you uncomfortable.”

“You—  Wait, what do you mean it ‘must have come from _you_ ’?”

Cyrus’s words and thoughts both stuttered, but the way he dropped his eyes to his feet and began to flush slowly from the neck up was a kind of answer in itself.  Oh, Therion thought, and then again, _oh_ , but the embarrassment was coming thick and fast from Cyrus and distracting him entirely, until he couldn’t focus on that potential revelation in the slightest.

“It’s fine,” he said instead, because what was the alternative?  _You didn’t make me uncomfortable_?  _It wasn’t just you_? _I wish I could have stayed asleep_?  They all sounded ridiculous, and far more ‘inappropriate’ than Cyrus’s claim.  “It’s kinda my fault too for...sleepwalking into your bed, anyway.”  Except Therion didn’t sleepwalk.  One didn’t live very long in his line of work with a habit as inconvenient and potentially dangerous as that.  So he had no real idea how he’d actually ended up in Cyrus’s bed, and he hoped to any God that existed that Cyrus couldn’t hear that particular admission.  “Let’s just forget it ever happened.  It won’t happen again, anyway.”

Cyrus smiled and nodded, palpably relieved, and as he reached over to take Therion’s napkin to dispose of it, their eyes met and their fingers brushed and their magic swelled in unison, in agreement.

* * *

It did happen again.  And again.

As the travellers continued towards Duskbarrow, Therion would more often than not find himself waking in the mornings pressed to Cyrus’s chest, off the back of a dream where they had spent hours just kissing, or walking hand-in-hand to nowhere in particular and giggling together, or watching the sunset from atop a hill as they leaned easily into a shared embrace.  Once, after a particularly arduous day, the dream had taken a turn for the unusually unchaste and Therion woke up with his teeth against Cyrus’s neck and his knee between his legs, and he had gotten the hell out of there before Cyrus could wake up and feel just how badly he wanted it to continue.

But they didn’t talk about it.  They tried not to think about it either; an effort that became easier the closer they got to their destination and Cyrus’s thoughts became more consumed with what they might find there.  His growing apprehension wasn’t pleasant for either of them, but it was at least a distraction from the ominous idea hanging over them that they should talk about their _feelings_.  It was simpler to just have a goal and a plan, like the earlier days of their travels when Therion was just a thief looking for some precious stones and Cyrus was just a scholar looking for a lost book, and neither of them were looking at each other.

* * *

They saw Lucia as soon as they got to Duskbarrow, strolling around as though she owned the place, obviously confident that she wouldn’t be recognised or bothered in such a small, unremarkable village.  Therion felt Cyrus’s tension in his own muscles, pulling his chest tight and curling his hands into fists, and he forced a shaky breath out to try and calm himself again.  He heard Cyrus do the same moments later.

Lucia paused just north of the village square, glancing furtively around.  Her eyes swept close to where the group were half-hidden behind a building, and Therion yanked Cyrus towards him by the sleeve as they ducked as one out of sight.  Cyrus stumbled and had to brace his arms against the wall to Therion’s back to stop them colliding together completely.  The good news was that this avoided either of them making noise and giving away their hiding spot.  The bad news was that it left them extremely close together, with Therion pressed against the wall on one side and crowded on the other three by Cyrus, and every single one of the dreams they’d had came rushing back to them all at once.

Therion wasn’t sure that was bad news at all, really.  Not with how Cyrus’s expression eased after a moment, his emotions easing to match at the same time; with how Therion relaxed his posture in return and raised himself up onto his toes, instinctively—

“Ahem,” went Olberic, and they sprung apart: Cyrus succeeded and took up a new position exactly three feet away, but all Therion succeeded in was rattling his skull against the wall.  They both winced.  Olberic graciously avoided eye contact with either of them.  “Our mark appears to have disappeared.”

Cyrus turned, sudden frustration clouding his face and his head of any previous intentions, and ran out of their hiding spot with no care for stealth at all.  _Idiot_ , thought Therion briefly, putting their encounter out of his mind too, but he ran after Cyrus anyway.

The group gathered in the last place they had seen Lucia before she vanished - in front of a decorated stone wall, hidden in the shade of the trees and overgrown with moss.

“She was just here,” Cyrus muttered, perplexed.  “Wherever could she have gone?”

“If she were to leaven the village, we wouldst have seen her,” H’aanit mused, “and Linde cannot tracken her scent anywhere but here.”

Tressa ran up, out of breath.  “She’s not in the inn or the tavern or the store.  Unless she’s hiding out in someone’s house…”

“Unlikely,” Olberic said.  “She is a stranger here.  I doubt the people of such a small community would simply allow her into their homes on a whim.”

Cyrus hummed softly in response to their claims, which Therion knew meant he hadn’t really been listening.  He remained intent on the wall, running his fingers over the worn stone and cobwebs like they would provide some answers.

Evidently, they did, with how Therion felt Cyrus’s breath catch, his eyes widening the tiniest fraction as he breathed, “A button of sorts…”

A hush fell over the party as Cyrus did what one would naturally do with a button, and pressed it.  Nothing happened.  The sense of disappointment was palpable, but only Cyrus was unaffected, his thoughts alive and eager and whirring with puzzlement and potential.  Clearly if pushing the button was not the solution, then doing something else to it was.  There wasn’t enough purchase to pull it instead, and a quick re-examination of the wall showed no other similar buttons.  After a few more failed attempts, Therion felt Cyrus light up with a new idea, and watched as he managed to close his fingers around the small stone knob and twist.

Clockwise, nothing.

Anticlockwise, and the wall split apart, old stone creaking and dust falling in curtains as it broke in two and parted into a perfect open door.

“Well, this _is_ a turn,” Cyrus said, mostly to himself but partially to Therion as well, who heard more than the others ever could, and who couldn’t help but snort at the terrible joke.  Cyrus smiled too, mostly to himself, but of course, partially to Therion.

Olberic and H’aanit, ever the vanguard, went through the doorway first - it looked like it led into some ruins, hidden amongst the forest and half-collapsed and probably even older than the door itself - and the others followed.  Cyrus, oddly, hung back.  Therion did too, apprehension fettering his desire to get in and explore - not that either of those feelings belonged to him in the first place.  They belonged to the scholar hovering awkwardly in the entrance, knuckles pale where he gripped the edge of the door still.  He was nervous.  Understandable, given what they’d experienced in his leg of their journey alone - human sacrifices, men turning into beasts, Cyrus almost dying alone in a dark pit - but Therion didn’t like it.  Nervousness didn’t suit Cyrus.  It sat on him like clothes in the wrong cut and size, and Therion wanted to get him out of—wait, that metaphor got away from him a little.

“Colour me impressed, Professor,” he said instead, approaching.  A distraction from potential danger - and from whatever had come over them before, pressed up against that wall together.  (Now, alone as they were, the memory threatened to resurface.  _Not the time_.)

Cyrus’s head whipped around, broken free of his tumultuous thinking with a small echo of _Professor?_ \- it had been a while since Therion had called him anything but his name, and that revelation sat strange in both their heads.  “To what are you referring?”

“Finding the hidden door.”

Sheepish understanding dawned on Cyrus’s face, along with something that looked suspiciously like the beginnings of a blush.  “It was no great thing,” he deflected.  How unlike him to not take a compliment.  “I enjoy coming up with little theories and then testing them…”

“It’s a useful talent.  If you ever have mind to switch trades, you could make a go of thievery.”  And wasn’t _that_ a thought.  Perfectly groomed and sweet and smart Cyrus, a petty pickpocket.  He had intended it as a joke, but the idea was...strangely exciting.

Cyrus laughed, a beautiful sound, “If I do fall on hard times in the scholarly world, I shall apply to become your prentice.”

Therion laughed, too.  “Hate to disappoint you, but I’m not the teaching type.  I learned by watching and doing.”  _And feeling_.

“Observation and practice, in other words.  That is the essence of all learning,” Cyrus said, and oh, didn’t Therion know it.  He had practised his rune magic for long enough now, and observed Cyrus in his own spellcraft for just as long.  Cyrus’s voice dropped slightly lower, as if his next words were a secret, “If you ever took it upon yourself to become a scholar, I would certainly vouch for you.”

Therion saw in his mind’s eye himself, adorned in robes that looked better on him than they had any right to, skulking through the halls of an academy he’d never been inside yet knew the exact layout of.  He suppressed the thought and shrank under his poncho, shyness suddenly gripping him.  “I-I appreciate the offer,” he mumbled, “but I think I’m allergic to academia.”

Cyrus just chuckled and turned away, looking back into the sprawling shade of the musty ruins.  Not distracted any longer, disquiet started to creep back into him, but nonetheless he took a decisive step forward.

Therion bit his tongue to stop himself saying something he suddenly, desperately wanted to say, and followed him.

* * *

The ruins were indeed vast, spreading up and down and out in a path through the gnarled trees that was invisible from Duskbarrow itself.  The village noises disappeared almost instantly, as though the ruins existed inside their own bubble, cut off from the rest of the world; just an endless labyrinth of crumbling brickwork at the mercy of the forest reclaiming its rightful place, two ancient forces battling for supremacy in secret.

But no ruin could be as vast as Cyrus’s thirst for knowledge.  He flitted between fallen pillars and caved-in structures, touching them and murmuring and forgetting his unease entirely.  He stopped before some sort of mural, miraculously intact despite the disrepair of the rest of the landscape.  To the others passing him, he was silent as he examined it, one hand on his chin and a curious tilt to his head, his eyes scanning over the abstract markings intently.  To Therion, he was deafening: his thoughts ran dizzyingly fast and constant, a contemplative burble of patterns and possible meanings and ancient languages and _runes_ , he thought, and looked suddenly at Therion.  Therion looked back.

“I-I can’t read them,” he said.

Cyrus shook his head.  “Nor I.  ...Though I hate to admit it, I fear deciphering this will take more time than we have.  We should move on.”

He walked on in front again, and Therion bit his tongue harder.

The deeper they ventured into the ruins, the more grand the structures appeared, and the less obvious nature’s mark became.  Grass and shrubs still sprung up through cracks in the concrete floors and branches still snaked through empty gaps that used to be windows, but there were now entire walls with barely a mark on them, and carpet still intact on some of the walkways, and—

“A library,” Cyrus said, awed.

A library it was: an entire room filled with packed shelves of books, surprisingly unblemished despite the permeating smell of damp.  As Cyrus rushed forward to examine them with his usual glee, Therion wasn’t the only one to instead notice the way they were arranged perfectly on the shelves, and the torches that burned on the walls nearby that allowed Cyrus light to read them in the first place.  He shared a look with H’aanit, knowing a hunter’s eyes wouldn’t miss such signs.  She nodded and left with Linde and the monster companions she had collected in the woods to guard the ways in and out of the room.  They weren’t alone here.

It was useless trying to rush Cyrus, though.  Therion didn’t need any sort of mind-link to understand that, and neither did any of the others, if how they split off into little groups to take a load off for a short while was any indication.  Primrose joined H’aanit at the entranceway, the two women speaking in low voices with their heads bent together; Alfyn set about sorting through his satchel with Ophilia’s assistance; and Olberic sat quietly - with Tressa for once doing the same next to him - and habitually begun checking and cleaning his blade.  They all certainly knew Cyrus well enough to know he would need some time in this room, no matter what manner of evil mystery awaited him further in the ruins.

What they didn’t know about was the sheer volume of Cyrus’s thoughts, clamouring excitedly in his head and spilling into Therion’s with enough force to make him wince.  If it wasn’t so loud it would be endearing; his emotions swelling with uncontained eagerness and then dipping into concentration as he scanned the musty pages of each tome he picked up, the rush of new information forming senseless strings of words in his mind that Therion could barely pick up on.  He heard _lost_ and _centuries_ , _forbidden_ and _tome_ and several phrases that could have been titles, and then _translation_ and _rune_ , and something clicked in his own mind.  _Runes_.

If this library was as ancient as the rest of the ruins, then perhaps there would be books on runes, or runelords, or even Balogar himself - anything that could help Therion improve.  Since this _thing_ with Cyrus had made itself apparent, his magic had stagnated, without much opportunity for study and too much distraction going on in his head to practise.  He still hadn’t made any progress with learning the light rune, even with Ophilia’s advice (and he used that term very lightly).  Just thinking of her words had him feeling warm, and he turned stubbornly and slunk in between the bookshelves to start his search, clamping down on his thoughts before they could run away with themselves.

Which meant he missed the soft bubble of curiosity that crept into Cyrus’s mind as he reached for one book in particular.

* * *

Therion found something eventually.  Or at least, he thought he did - he was by no means fluent in the language of the runes, but he had been studying them for long enough that he could recognise the character for the word _rune_ itself, and he definitely knew the elements, listed on something like a table of contents at the beginning of the book.  He turned to the section titled “Light,” but the chapter’s meaning eluded him, written in what looked like a mixture of semi-familiar runes and an entirely foreign script that was nothing like the common tongue of Orsterra in the slightest, with complex illustrations annotated with comments he could not read.  Still, he carefully tucked the book away for later.  He doubted anyone would miss it, and he could always needle Cyrus about it after they got out of the ruins.  If anyone would get excited about translating a crusty old book, it would be—

Sudden panic seizing in his chest had Therion stopping in his tracks, but he knew in a second it wasn’t his own.  He couldn’t feel any immediate danger, no real sense of fight-or-flight; just a brief twang of alarm, a spark of realisation and a gentle undercurrent of embarrassment, and as he turned his eyes to the source of it, Cyrus met his gaze and slammed the book he was holding shut with enough force to send a cloud of dust up from its cover.  He sneezed and looked away, a hint of pink colouring his face.  _Suspicious_ , Therion thought, and marched over.

“What did you find?”

“Oh, um, nothing,” Cyrus lied and tried to hide the book behind himself, but Therion deftly plucked it from his hands just like he had many months before, when he had stolen another book away from Cyrus and forced his attention onto him and asked, face half-hidden in his scarf, to be taught magic.  He blinked.  He had forgotten about that.  Cyrus hadn’t.

Therion looked at the book.  Annoyingly, (although he should have expected it,) it was all written in yet another language he couldn’t understand.

“You can read this,” he said to Cyrus.  It was not a question, and even if it was, Cyrus wouldn’t have had to answer.  Below the bashful thrum blanketing his thoughts there was a clear line of professional understanding, his mind still working in its usual logical manner despite his awkwardness.  Cyrus had read this book, and he had understood it, and he had understood something else, too.  Something that he was trying to hide.  From Therion.  As if it would work.  “What does it say?”

“It’s, er—”

“And you can’t lie to me, so don’t even bother.”

Cyrus blinked down at Therion.  His face was brighter pink than before.  After a few long moments where their silent eyeing of one another threatened to turn into a staring competition, Cyrus sighed, and held out his hand.  Therion handed the book back, and watched as Cyrus took it gingerly, feeling over the cover at the wear and tear it had sustained over many years.  He looked around, taking note of where their fellow companions were stationed, and motioned Therion into a quiet corner between two bookshelves.  Therion followed unquestioningly.  

“I was,” Cyrus began, voice hushed, “looking for information on—on us, on our...situation.  I thought if anywhere was likely to be able to shed some light on it, it would be here, in this hidden library.  I’ve found tomes in here that I had thought lost forever, Therion!  Ones I had only heard tales of in legend, or not even then!  It’s _incredible_ , a veritable fountain of—”

Therion said, “Cyrus,” and Cyrus stopped.  He fiddled with a corner of the book where the cover was peeling away.

“...Ah, quite.  I’m sorry.  I wasn’t sure what to expect, if indeed I should expect anything, but I did find something.  This book,” and he paused for a steadying breath, “is written in an old language similar to one I have studied in the past, and I believe the title is _The Ancient Art of_ —and then I’m not entirely sure of this word, but looking at the root components of it and how they’re generally translated into our tongue...I could be wrong, but—”

“ _Cyrus_.”

He snapped to attention, but still looking a little ruffled.  “R-Right.  I believe it could be translated as... _soulbond_.  _Soulbinding_?  I’m unsure whether it’s to be taken as a noun or not…”

“Soulbond?”  Therion squinted.  “What’s that?”

“Well, the book...does go into that in quite some detail.”  Cyrus flicked a few pages in, one finger following the words as he roughly interpreted them.  “This soulbond, if that is what we’re to call it, is apparently an ancient practice of forming a...a connection between two people - or, rarely, more than two - that is magical in origin, and is intended as a way to bolster the participants’ magical power.”

“A...connection,” Therion repeated, understanding dulling his voice into monotone.  “A magical connection.”

“Yes, and i-if I’m reading this correctly, then the idea was that by sharing magic the... _bond_... _mates_?  The bondmates would grow and learn from one another, thereby also growing and sharpening their skills.  And said magical bond is strengthened further, it says here, by…”  Cyrus paused.  He looked at Therion.

Therion looked back.  A pulse jumped in his throat, but he wasn’t entirely sure it was his.  “By?”

“By...the natural formation of an intimate emotional relationship.”

“Oh,” Therion said.  _Oh_ , his mind said, too.  And, _Oh_ , said the echo from Cyrus’s thoughts.  They continued to look at one another, words hanging in the air between them, _connection_ and _relationship_ and _intimate_ and _soulbond_ , this new strange term that came the closest to giving them a name for the thing between them.  There might have been another name for most of it, too, a shorter name, but—

“The book also says,” Cyrus continued, chasing them both away from the end of that thought, “that it’s very difficult to form a soulbond.  It apparently requires natural compatibility in both magic and temperament.”

“So it might not even be that,” Therion suggested.

“It might not,” Cyrus agreed.

They both knew it was, somehow, as easily as they knew themselves.  As easily as they knew each other, at this point.

Cyrus kept thumbing through the book, but he didn’t read anymore aloud.  Therion didn’t need him to, not with how piercing his thoughts were, even beneath a layer of obvious agitation.  This soulbond was a rare thing, an _ancient_ thing.  Ancient even in the time in which the book was written, and that was ancient enough on its own - thin pages yellowed and binding frayed - so there was no telling just how old the practice of soulbinding was.  Or why it wasn’t used anymore: Therion had never heard of the term, and even Cyrus had struggled to just translate it from the old tongues, when the spells he used everyday stemmed from those very languages.  If it was such an effective way to strengthen magic, then surely a scholar of all people would have known of it, no matter how old it was or how difficult it was to do.

“I may have an answer for that.”  Cyrus looked up slowly from somewhere near the back of the book.  “If I’m interpreting this correctly, then...soulbinding became taboo many years prior to the publishing of this tome, when it was used by one half of a pair of bondmates to—now this word can commonly be read as either ‘harm’ or ‘kill,’ but either way—”

“ _Kill_?  They killed their,”— _the word was still embarrassing_ —“...bondmate?”

“Or grievously harmed them, it seems, yes.”

“How?”

Cyrus’s eyes sped back and forth, one eyebrow arching further and further as he read.  “I’m not sure.  It doesn’t say.  But between sharing knowledge of one another’s magic, as well as having such a close emotional connection, I would think it would be easy to do some serious psychological damage.  Or perhaps there is a way to hijack magic from one end of the bond, like...like how I was influenced by your magic before; maybe it could be used to—”

“Don’t,” Therion said.

Cyrus stopped immediately.  He closed the book.  He blinked at Therion.  “Therion,” he said, soft as an exhale, “I would never...”

“Not that!” Therion hissed.  “I didn’t mean—I _know_ you wouldn’t—I just meant, don’t read anymore.  It’s weirding me out.”

“Oh,” Cyrus said.

They lapsed into unpleasant silence.  Cyrus’s mind burbled with awkwardness but, for once, relatively quiet in spite of it.  Only the word _soulbond_ came through clearly, repeated at random intervals.  Therion had half a mind to turn and walk away, to put some distance between him and this unbearable atmosphere, but that wouldn’t make a difference, and Cyrus would just catch him anyway.  Cyrus always caught him.

Before Therion could actually figure out what to do, Cyrus said, “I’m sorry,” and that was unexpected enough that Therion felt his own mind go blank at it.

“For...for what?” he asked, because he genuinely couldn’t tell.  Cyrus’s mind was so unfocused that Therion couldn’t pick up on any meaning in particular.  He wasn’t sure he liked that.  He wasn’t sure when he’d gotten so used to reading Cyrus that to be suddenly unable to was this jarring.

“For this.”  Cyrus gestured between them with the book.  He tried to smile, but it didn’t quite work.  His voice had gone back to being small.  “For all of this.  I only ever wanted to teach you, Therion, to watch you grow, and instead...I-I’ve coerced you into some sort of union that you certainly don’t want, influencing you with my magic without even the slightest notion of consent, and the worst part is that I—”

“I don’t hate it,” Therion answered, or finished, or both.  Cyrus looked at him, eyes wide, timid.  Therion looked back, just the same.  Then they both looked away, because it was easier that way.  “I don’t hate it, and you didn’t force me into anything, and you already said _I_ had been...influencing _you_ , so really, it’s only fair that you do the same to me, and I—it’s not—it’s...interesting.”

“Interesting,” Cyrus repeated quietly.  He liked that adjective.  It was a positive adjective.  Therion blushed.

“A-And besides, if this soulbond thing is so rare and ancient, then what are the chances of _us_ being able to do it?  We’re nothing special.  It’s probably just that...thing, that second principle of magic thing you talked about before.  The...the lasting effects, or whatever.  What’s the third principle?  Is there a third one?  That might...explain...”

“No...” Cyrus said, and Therion’s babbling quietened immediately, “there are only two.”

Therion thought that something as vast and individual as magic should perhaps have more than two principles.  Cyrus thought back that two was quite enough given the range of theories they could cover between them.  Therion said, “Oh.  Okay then.”

The curtain of silence lowered between them again, and again Cyrus was the one to part it, bumbling and clumsy but so clearly trying his best despite an awkward situation.  “W-We should probably keep moving.  We must find Lucia.”

Therion nodded, moving away.  Cyrus moved too, and as he did, Therion felt something so strong tugging at him that it might as well have been a physical chain linked between them, tautening more the further Cyrus got from him and urging him to follow.  It pulled at whatever was bricking up his desires, loosening the restraints on them enough that the smallest one wriggled free, planting itself firm and urgent at the front of Therion’s mind and driving his feet forward again.

“Wait,” he said, and Cyrus did.  He turned back towards Therion, and Therion surged forward and upwards and kissed his cheek.  Just for a second, barely long enough to even register touch, but long enough for Cyrus’s eyes to blow wide and a flush to spring up over his cheeks anew.  Long enough for Therion to realise just what in the Gods’ names he had done.

It took an astonishing amount of willpower to not run away immediately.

“Therion?”  Cyrus’s voice was tiny and curious, a hundred flustered question marks springing up in his mind, and when Therion made the mistake of looking up from his feet (where his eyes should have stayed if he knew what was good for him!), Cyrus was touching his own cheek with an expression that could only be described as wonder.

“It’s a thief thing,” Therion blurted out.  It was obviously not a thief thing.  “For...good luck.”  It was obviously not for good luck either.  “So be careful.”

Therion didn’t know what he expected.  Awkwardness, obviously, and he was getting that in spades.  For Cyrus to turn away and pretend it had never happened, probably, since neither of them were emotionally prepared to deal with whatever _that_ had been.  He definitely hadn’t expected Cyrus to smile.

“When am I not careful?” he asked, and Therion hadn’t expected that, either, and he heard himself laugh before he even realised laughing was an option.  Cyrus laughed too, a quiet breathy little thing, and then he did walk away, but still touching his cheek.  Therion collapsed against the bookshelf.

It hadn’t been a thief thing.  It hadn’t been for good luck.  It had been a theory.  A theory of Therion’s own, put to the test.  The results...were questionable, yet not negative, but he didn’t know quite what to make of them.  Lacking Cyrus’s analytical mind to go over them and draw a definitive conclusion, Therion could only fist his hand in the fabric of his poncho over his heart and wonder at the strangely familiar, warm, floaty, pleasant feeling erupting in his chest.

* * *

They found Lucia waiting for them just ahead.  The sunlight that snuck in between the trees and broken walls illuminated her, standing on a platform atop a staircase as though it were an altar, surrounded by even more stolen and hoarded knowledge.  She looked every inch the mysterious beauty she had seemed when the group had first met her.  Her arms were folded daintily and her robes fluttered when she moved, turning to face the group with an expression that was anything but worthy of worship.

“Professor.”  Her eyes were dark with anger, her lips quirked in something closer to a snarl than a smile.  “You truly are every bit as brilliant as old Yvon said.”

“I did not come here for false flattery.”  Cyrus’s response was sharp in timing, words and tone, and laced with a fiery annoyance that was unlike him.  The rest of their companions glanced between themselves with confusion at the unusually harsh rebuttal, but Therion recognised the sentiment with intimate familiarity, almost like he’d spoken the words himself.

Lucia was unshaken though.  She continued on as if she hadn’t been found out, as if Cyrus hadn’t ruined her plans at every step and razed her favourite puppet to ashes with his own hand, as if he hadn’t followed her all the way here to confront her directly; moving with purposefully put-on grace, both her gestures and voice were languid and heavy with implications.  She rained honeyed words down on Cyrus that sounded to an untrained ear remarkably like his own brand of fawning and pretty speech, encouraging and sweetly praising his smarts and perseverance.  But Therion, ears and heart both trained to near perfection by now when it came to Cyrus, heard her attempts at flattery for what they were: ugly, fake bootlicking, the sweet-talk of a con artist trying to get close to her next mark.  Her words were entirely devoid of any of the emotion she claimed to express.  They were manipulative, pure and simple, and in a sudden shock of realisation Therion was reminded of Darius.  He felt ill.

“What say you, Cyrus?” Lucia asked.  She flung her arms out as though to embrace him, her voice rising in tone for the grand finale of her flummery.  “Will you join me in my research?”

Therion had his dagger out before she’d even finished her proposition, his muscles tense and ready to spring on her and slit her throat wide open for even daring to suggest such blasphemy.  To even ask such a thing!  As if he would say yes!  Therion wanted to get between this witch and Cyrus, to force her back and away and shove her spinning to the bottom of the stairs, to keep her from getting her disgusting, tainted hands anywhere near him—

But just as he was about to take the first step, Cyrus turned his back on Lucia, and Therion saw and heard and felt him smirk.

“Ridiculous,” he said, all grinning theatrics, “if that is a jape, it is a poor one,” and Therion got to watch in real-time - filled with a sudden brilliant glee at the sight of it - Lucia’s face falling, her perfectly constructed expression cracking and betraying her perplexion and dismay.  She caught herself a moment later, but it was a moment too late, for Therion had already committed the image to memory, holding it vividly at the front of his mind in the hopes that Cyrus might enjoy it too.

But she wouldn’t give in.  It was pathetic, really - there was something wild in her words as she continued to needle Cyrus with loaded questions and false promises, trying to appeal to his curiosity and theoremic nature.  Cyrus wouldn’t even look at her, standing rigid and facing away.  Therion felt the calm decisiveness in every one of his counters to her rising incensement, for once saying only what was needed, a handful of words to rebuff her and nothing more.

“Your mind,” she tried again, voice cracking on the edge of desperation, the swing of her arm this time looking more like the sad attempt to reach for something that was fast slipping out of her grasp, “no, your very soul burns with an all-consuming desire to _know_!  That is what separates you from the rest, Cyrus!  We are true seekers of knowledge - you and I!  Together...we can unlock—”

“Enough.”

The weight of that one word had Therion shuddering.  Cyrus’s voice had turned heavy with implicit danger, his enunciation slow and deep and dark as he finally turned to address Lucia directly.  His eyes had lost their mirth, now alight with quiet rage, and though he held himself still and steady Therion could feel anger simmering beneath his skin, his magic broiling alongside it.  “Do not assume to know what my soul desires,” he said, and then he was looking at Therion, and Therion could do naught but look back.

It was barely a glance, and then he returned to glaring at Lucia, but it was enough.  Enough for Therion to see himself reflected in the words.  Enough for him to remember warm hands, matching breaths, and touches in the dark.  Enough for him to forget entirely how to breathe as he realised what Cyrus meant.

And enough for Lucia to realise it, too.

Now both of them saw her mask shatter altogether, replaced with a monstrous concoction of fury and despondency as she produced a blood crystal and shattered it in a single motion, the putrid magic beginning to turn her into a colossal, horrible beast, just as it had done to Yvon.  She screamed with such a force that it dislodged some of the crumbling brickwork around them, kicking up dust and dirt to force the group to shield their eyes.  She swung for Cyrus before her transformation was even fully complete, one grotesque arm slamming down towards him.  Therion yanked him out of the way just in time (thank Aeber for his quick reflexes) and as he pulled him close and safe, Lucia roared again.

“ _WHY!?_ ”  It was barely recognisable as a word at all, so garbled and bestial was her voice, and as the dust began to settle they saw just how awful her metamorphosis really was.  Her shredded robes hung uselessly from her still expanding, shambling frame, and her body convulsed rapidly, hunching over as her backbone ripped itself outwards to stand like disfigured spines along her back.  The platform seemed smaller now, barely large enough to contain her mass.  She oozed dark power, cloying and thick, so much so that the very feeling of it choked Therion, his stomach churning and his eyes watering and his own buried dark magic beginning to stir.  He faltered, but Cyrus squeezed his arm, and the roiling magic inside him quieted instantly.

“ _I_... _KNEW_ …” Lucia hissed, pulling herself upright on her new, hugely disproportionate arms to look at them.  Her eyes glowed bloody red.  Her voice hovered on all the wrong pitches.  “ _I knEW there was ssSSSsOMEthing...wrong.  WRONG!  WroooOONG!_ ”  She smacked the ground before her, and several books flung themselves from the shelves lining the walls.  The group scattered as best they could, wary of her ire, but it was pointless.  She didn’t care about them.  She only seemed to care about Cyrus and Therion, a fact that wasn’t lost on either of them as she swept an arm in their direction, barely a hair’s breadth short of catching and shattering their legs.  “ _It could have been...MEee, should...hAVe...usssS, CyrusssS, to-together, me-me-meant-t-to…_ ”  Lucia seemed to deflate for a moment, an expression of uncomfortably human dejection crossing her distorted features.  A moment was all it lasted, though, and then she screamed again, something that could have been another cry of “ _Why?_ ” or just the wordless bellow of a pitiful, deformed creature.

They watched the last dregs of humanity fade from her eyes, and then she couldn’t talk anymore.

* * *

They had thought Yvon was a dangerous fight, but he had nothing on Lucia.  Transformed to an even greater extent, her strength was lethal.  She incapacitated most of H’aanit’s monster allies in a matter of minutes, forcing her to even recall Linde out of harm’s way, and the normally indomitable Olberic was acting with an unusual level of prudence as well in the face of such unrelenting aggression, aimed at him or no.  And it wasn’t: Lucia had eyes only for Cyrus, and the worst of it was that his spells were entirely _useless_ against her.  They bounced off her thick skin as though it were mirrored: she didn’t burn, she didn’t freeze, she didn’t conduct.  He could do nothing but try to stay out of the way of her attacks, offering pointers to his companions as to where her weak spots were and how to strike them.

If there was one silver lining to their rather poor situation, it was that Cyrus and Therion were totally and utterly in sync, more than they had ever been before.  Therion had sped off before Cyrus had even opened his mouth to tell the others to stick to physical attacks, darting in and out of range with uncharacteristic elegance, sneaking dagger strikes under Lucia’s arms and at her back and even, when he felt particularly brave, towards the glowing, demonic red heart in the centre of her chest; while Cyrus continued to fire volley after volley of magic to keep her at bay, and the spells wound harmlessly around Therion, seeming to alter their course in midair to avoid him even when he was directly in the line of fire.

Whether she hadn’t quite lost the whole of her mind to evil and hate and recognised an opening, or whether she was just driven to keep attacking Cyrus no matter what, Lucia swung towards the scholar while he was alone and undefended.  Her massive fist thundered at him, almost splitting the very air in twain with the sheer force behind it, and Therion saw it coming like it was aimed at him instead.  His pulse spiked and his shirt clung to him with a cold sweat as he got to Cyrus just in time to shove him aside, throwing himself down after to duck the hit as well.  They landed in a clumsy pile, and it wasn’t the best time to notice that Cyrus’s hair tie had come out and gotten lost somewhere in the fight, or that his hair was spilling over his shoulders enticingly, but there Therion was noticing it anyway.

What he didn’t notice was the fist coming straight at the two of them once more - but Alfyn did, and sunk his axe into Lucia’s back to gouge out one of her disgusting spines.  She screeched and stumbled, her defences and unforgiving onslaught of attacks both momentarily slackened.

“Get ‘er!” Alfyn yelled, and (once Therion had untangled himself from Cyrus and pulled him to his feet) all of them were on her at once.  Olberic, Alfyn and Tressa struck with sword and axe and polearm; Primrose and Therion followed up with their daggers, hitting at vitals with pinpoint accuracy; H’aanit and Linde both pounced with twin yowls of utter ferality, gleeful at finally getting their claws into their foe; and, at opposite sides of Lucia’s collapsed frame, Cyrus and Ophilia stood, the air around them vibrating with the force of their conjuring.  They let loose at the same time, Ophilia with dazzling beams of holy light, Cyrus with a searing wall of flame, and Lucia lit up like a beacon, bawling like a banshee, encased on all sides by magic with naught visible but her nightmarish silhouette writhing wildly.

When the spells faded, smoke rose in pungent wisps from Lucia’s body.  Her hair was burnt off, her frame heaved with the effort of drawing breath, and her skin crackled with the remnants of the hurt that had just been laid upon her.  And yet, she stood up.  She forced herself onto shaking legs that seemed too small to even hold her, urged upright by some unearthly twisted determination that none of the humans surrounding her could fathom.  Her glassy eyes swept across the area until, again, they landed on Cyrus.  And again, she turned her lumbering body towards him and began to slowly haul herself forward.

“Damn,” Therion swore, at the scholar’s side in an instant.  He was tired, his knees weak and posture sagging, but he managed a grim smile.  “She really has it in for you.”

“It would appear so,” Cyrus agreed.  He wasn’t faring much better, clothes torn and covered top to bottom in dust.  His magic pulsed weakly, reserves close to empty from how much he had used just to keep Lucia at a distance, even ineffective as his spells had been.  “But look,” he cast a trembling arm out, “her skin.”  Therion squinted, understanding feeding into him as to what Cyrus meant - Lucia’s skin, which had seemed to shine with a sickly purplish tint before, now looked dull and damaged, almost like a layer was missing.  “I believe she may be vulnerable to magic now.  Shall we test that theory?”

“Why not?  We’ve got nothing to lose.”

“On the contrary,” Cyrus said, leaning into Therion, who in turn leaned into him, “I have quite a great deal to lose.  And I don’t intend to give up any of it.”

Therion laughed, feeling a bright fluttering inside himself, distinct from both his and Cyrus’s magic.  “On the count of three?”

“But of course.”

“One,” Therion said, angling his dagger.

“Two,” echoed Cyrus, opening his trusty, battered spelltome.

Their eyes met, and Cyrus thought, _Light?_ , and Therion nodded, not thinking about how ridiculous it was to agree when he had had zero luck with the element so far, or how they were both staring down the barrel of almost certain death at the hands of a creature that looked like it had come, fittingly, from the far reaches of Hell - just _feeling_ : feeling Cyrus’s magic swell as much as it could, feeling the weakened line of the scholar’s torso pressing near to him as they propped one another up, feeling all the fatigue leave his body to be replaced by an airiness that bubbled and flitted around inside him, and he laughed again (it _tickled_ ), and they both said, “Three!”

Magic exploded from Cyrus’s fingertips at the same time that Therion took off like a shot.  Fuelled by a quick fury, the spell erupted brilliantly across Lucia’s awful, dripping maw and she reared back, shrieking and stumbling and trying to cover her face.  Therion darted in, true as an arrow, his footsteps seeming weightless and effortlessly graceful as he zipped into range, no longer fearful of her swinging arms as she hunched over and clawed at her own eyes.  He traced the rune for light onto his blade without even looking; felt the magic take in a heartbeat and the warm luster of it climb up his arms, holding him firm to drive him ever forward.

He slashed a clean line across Lucia’s swollen, evil heart, and the light that exploded from her every pore rained down, resplendent.

Lucia collapsed, deflating.  It was as though her body could no longer keep its form, and so she was melting, her bones hissing as they began to wither and fade and be absorbed into the stone beneath her.  Even then, with her entire being crumbling, she reached out towards Cyrus with what was left of one of her arms.  A flicker of recognition passed through her eyes as they lolled back in her rapidly disintegrating skull.

“Wh...y…” she rasped through missing teeth, her voice and humanity returning for her final brief, pathetic moment as herself, “we could...have been....incredible...and yet,” her throat burbled, “with him,” her skin bubbled, “you’re...soulbond—”

Her body gave in, and she disappeared in a sad puff of smoke.

Tressa and Alfyn gave whoops and cheers of joy at vanquishing their foe, and the others joined in with slightly more muted displays of victory.  But neither Cyrus nor Therion heard any of it.  All they heard was Lucia’s last words, playing on a loop in both their heads.

 _With him_ , thought Cyrus, looking at Therion.

 _Soulbond_ , thought Therion, looking at Cyrus.

It was undeniable now.  Lucia had been tainted by evil, of that there was no doubt, but just as doubtless was the fact that she was clever.  She had probably read and memorised and understood her entire stolen library.  If she said they were _soulbonded_ , then it had to be—

 _Real_ , they both thought, at the same time, together.

Panic spiked Therion’s pulse - Cyrus’s panic again; a small, fluttering thing, like a caged bird, wingbeats hammering in his throat.  The scholar's wide, soft eyes betrayed his nervousness too, easy-to-read fool that he was.  Therion didn’t need a soulbond to be able to see that.

 _But I want it,_ he thought; definitely _his_ thought, impulsive and startling and somehow not paralysing him with fear.  That it wasn’t frightening would once have been the most frightening thing of all, but fear didn’t exist for Therion anymore.  Only the growing, radiant gleam surrounding his heart did.  He smiled, and Cyrus’s anxiety was hushed as he smiled shyly back.

And then, Cyrus’s knees gave out, and he collapsed.

As quick as Therion was, there was naught more nimble than a healer when faced with the injured, and so Ophilia was kneeling by Cyrus’s side before Therion had even seen her move.  She rested a hand on his arm, and he smiled sheepishly.  Therion had the sudden urge to take her place, but before he could do so a different, wholly unwelcome hand caught him by the elbow and spun him around.

“Whoa, now,” Alfyn said, looking Therion up and down with a discerning eye.  “I know you’re worried, but you’re lookin’ pretty tuckered out yourself.  How about you—”

Therion snatched the leafy concoctions from him before he had even finished speaking and swallowed them whole.  “I’m fine.”  He wrenched himself free, leaving Alfyn to turn dejectedly to Primrose.  She just shrugged, as if to say, “What did you expect?”

“Are you okay?” Therion asked, kneeling at Cyrus’s other side.

Cyrus turned a softer smile on him.  “Yes, I’m fine.  Just tired.  That took quite a bit out of me, but Ophilia here is doing a sterling job of reducing my fatigue.”  She seemed somewhat flustered at the compliment, but continued to channel her healing magic into his body with renewed vigour.  Therion understood completely.  “What about you?  Are you hurt?”

Therion shook his head, and Cyrus relaxed.  No longer tense with adrenaline, his tiredness was so heavy and all-consuming it was almost palpable and his magic felt like barely a trickle instead of its usual steady, running track through his body.  He really had used up a lot of his energy.  Therion, on the other hand, hadn’t used much magic at all save for his sudden successful foray into the light rune.  He took Cyrus’s hand.

“Here,” he said softly, and opened up the line into his own magic reserves.  He had learned how to a while back - it was useful for moments like these, when Cyrus had run himself more ragged than he’d intended, and Alfyn didn’t have any restorative vials ready.  Immediately, he felt an odd sensation, like a gentle probing at his deepest recesses, almost shy in its softness, and then his magic being hesitantly siphoned away.  It tickled, and he fidgeted a little.  At the same time, he felt Cyrus’s magic flow perk up slightly.

“Thank you,” Cyrus said.  (They had both almost forgotten Ophilia was there, and so she sat like a silent intruder, and willed her magic to work faster.)

* * *

They stayed like that a while; long after Ophilia had finished healing not only Cyrus but the rest of the group in a joint effort with Alfyn; long after their companions had descended the stairs, deciding as one to leave the two men alone for a time.  Therion tried not to think about why that might be.

“Therion.”  Cyrus spoke gently, bringing him back to the moment, “I’m alright now.”

Therion dropped his hand.  They both stood.  Cyrus brushed his hair back from his face, tutting quietly when it simply flopped down in front of his eyes again.  Therion remembered something, and dug around in his various pockets and hidden nooks within his clothes for a moment before he produced a long, thin strip of ribbon, coloured a rich blue.  “Here,” he said, holding it out.  Cyrus looked at him curiously, an obvious question forming in his mind.  “I picked this up,” _stole it, for you,_ “I thought...it might come in handy,” _it’d suit you, the same colour as your eyes._

Cyrus chuckled, those eyes that Therion had been thinking of crinkling pleasantly.  “You’re very kind.”  And then he turned his back, and the implication was obvious.

Therion’s fingers trembled as he combed them through Cyrus’s hair, working the knots smooth and gathering the strands together into a rough approximation of a ponytail.  He wrapped the ribbon around it and tied it clumsily, a little embarrassed - he was a thief, he was usually good with his hands, but his dexterity appeared to have run off somewhere to leave him a bumbling fool.

When he finished, admiring his (crooked) handiwork, Cyrus turned to face him again.  He was very close.  “How do I look?”

 _Perfect,_ Therion thought, _gorgeous._   “Good,” he said, flushing bright red and looking away, “fine.”

“Good,” Cyrus echoed, his breath blistering hot across Therion’s lips.  His hand found its way to Therion’s cheek, thumb stroking along his jaw as he gently angled his face, and Therion went willingly.  And then, they were kissing.

Therion’s eyes fell closed like it was a reflex.  He leaned into the kiss, pressing up and forward with such insistence that Cyrus giggled against his lips and had to hold his face still to slot their mouths together more comfortably.  For all they had kissed in their dreams - and they _had_ , it was useless to pretend otherwise now - it had never been like this.  This was pure, and raw, and absolute unblemished adoration, and when they parted, smiling into one another until the final seconds of the kiss and then even after, Cyrus rested his forehead against Therion’s in a picture of absolute contentment.  A small flicker of guilt passed through his eyes and his thoughts.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask if I could do that.”

Therion snorted, and butted their noses together, grinning impudently.  This close, their hearts drummed the same excitable rhythm.  “You don’t have to.”

* * *

They made it out of the ruins.  They managed to do it balancing all the books Cyrus wanted to rescue, and keeping up appearances even under Primrose’s discerning gaze, and all the way back to the inn and up the stairs and into the room they were sharing.  They managed it, but barely.

The books hit the floor in a haphazard heap, followed moments later by Therion’s poncho, and then Cyrus’s coat, the articles of clothing somehow wrangled from both men even while they incessantly, endlessly, unrelentingly kissed and kissed and kissed.  Their hands gripped at collars and shoulders and faces and hair and wherever they could reach to hold each other closer.  It was as though a dam had burst after that first kiss, and after Therion had told Cyrus he didn’t need to ask for permission; the realisation settling over both of them that it was okay, that this was _okay_ , that kissing each other was okay - more than okay in fact, _wonderful_ , and that neither of them wanted to stop doing it anytime soon.

The backs of Cyrus’s knees collided with the bedframe, and he stumbled back onto the mattress, barely retaining a sitting position.  Therion followed, climbing into his lap and straddling him, looping his arms around Cyrus’s neck.  Cyrus’s hands settled on his waist, and he shivered.

Kissing Cyrus was like nothing Therion had ever experienced.  He had kissed others before - and an idle question passed through him of if _Cyrus_ had, or if Therion was this unwitting scholar’s first, before that too was lost in the whirlpool of his mind, unable to focus on anything but the soft movement of the lips against his - but nothing like this, nothing gentle and curious and shy and excited like how Cyrus was kissing him now.  He had never _felt_ anything like this either: the steady and warm feeling that he usually got from Cyrus now a churning, fluttering mess of nervous eagerness, and as Therion pressed firm with his lips he breathed out hard through his nose, trying to force calmness into the body beneath him.  It worked, somewhat - Cyrus relaxed a fraction, and started sucking on Therion’s bottom lip like he had in that very first dream they shared, and Therion melted against him and made a quiet blissful noise that had Cyrus pulling him closer.  That odd, floaty feeling made itself known again, making Therion glad for Cyrus’s hands on him in case he really did drift away.  It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was strange that it only seemed to make itself known when he and Cyrus—

Therion’s eyes flew open, and he broke the kiss abruptly.

Cyrus blinked back to himself as well, looking handsome and utterly kiss-dazed, his cheeks flushed and his shirt rumpled where Therion had yanked at it.  “Therion?  What is it?”

“Magic,” Therion answered, and slid away from Cyrus, looking around the room.  Cyrus made a small sound of discontent that was very hard to ignore.  Therion exercised all of his restraint to ignore it anyway.  His eyes finally landed on his dagger, cast aside with his poncho earlier, and he scooped it up before settling right back in Cyrus’s lap, facing away from him this time.  “Light magic.  I think I know how to do it properly now.  But I need your help.”

Cyrus perked up at that and leaned closer into Therion, propping his chin on his shoulder and looking down at the dagger balanced on his knees.  “What do you need me to do?”

“Take my hands,” Therion said.  “Like before.”  _Before_ meaning the first time, Cyrus saw clearly in Therion’s thoughts, when he had shown Therion how to write the fire rune while pressed against his back and breathing against his cheek.  Back then, Cyrus hadn’t had any ulterior motives, but recalling at the memory that still existed so vibrantly in Therion’s mind he could understand how it looked - how it _felt_ \- and a belated, embarrassed blush crept up his neck.  Nonetheless, he wrapped his arms around Therion from behind and covered the thief’s small, rough hands with his own, slotting their fingers together loose enough that Therion could still manoeuvre his dagger.

Therion felt a tiny, nostalgic, comforting flicker of fire magic, drawn to the surface by that memory too.  But this time, instead of quashing it and sending it away like he had done so many times before, he leaned into it, letting it spread through him and make him melt into Cyrus’s embrace, the scholar’s magic threading seamlessly into his and providing a sturdy support of warmth and safety and peace just as much as the arms around him were.

“Help me write it,” Therion said, or perhaps he only thought it, but either way Cyrus heard loud and clear and together they slowly traced the complex shape of Balogar’s light rune onto the dagger.  When it was done, Therion breathed out shakily, and Cyrus nuzzled into his cheek, kissing him there, and then the blade in his lap burst into vivid white light, blazing with such an intensity that Therion had to close his eyes.

And it felt _incredible_.  If dark magic was the worst thing Therion had ever felt then light was surely the best, thrumming through his entire being with a beautiful purpose, brimming with an unstoppable...something.  Dark magic had done that too, to an extent - made him want to do things, taken hold of him in a way the other elements never had, but that had been unpleasant to the point of sickening, turning him into a slave to his own unwilling actions.  Light magic bent completely the other way and only amplified his natural feelings and impulses into a shining beacon of pure energy - impulses like how he wanted to turn and kiss Cyrus senseless again, feelings like how Ophilia had been right all along, how he

_loved_

Cyrus

—

 

 _I love you too,_ Cyrus thought, and Therion’s concentration broke into a million tiny pieces.

He opened his eyes, and his dagger sat dull and inconspicuous in his lap, and he swivelled so fast to face Cyrus he almost knocked him out.  “You—you _what_!?”

Cyrus, to his credit, only took a few seconds to realise what had happened, and then he had the decency to turn a very fetching crimson.  “I-I, well.  In my defence, y-you thought it first,” he mumbled, unbearably (endearingly) shy.

“Since when!?”

“Since,” _the beginning,_ “I-I mean,” _I have always adored you, I think,_ “Oh, dear,” _I just never realised how much,_ “Therion, I—”

Therion discovered that kissing Cyrus was also a very effective way to shut his babbling up.  Well, almost.

 _I love you,_ he heard again, even with Cyrus’s lips sealed.  He thought back, quietly, sincerely, _I love you, too._

* * *

That night, they lay in bed together and kissed until they were almost falling asleep on each other’s lips, just like in their dreams but so, so much better.  Therion found Cyrus’s hand beneath the duvet and squeezed it, and Cyrus’s other hand pet through his hair with an impossible gentleness.

“Therion,” Cyrus breathed, and it was only the sliver of uncertainty that wormed its way into their shared thoughts—their _soulbond_ —that had Therion pulling away and angling to look at him.  “I....must return to Atlasdam.”  Therion’s heart dropped into his stomach at once at the answer to the question he’d been too afraid to ask.  “I must file a report on what we discovered in the ruins, and then begin my analysis of the materials we collected.”  Therion gripped his hand tighter, anxiety tightening in his chest.  Cyrus must have felt it too, but he continued anyway, despite how much Therion wanted to kiss him quiet again.  “But...what I mean to ask is,” he twirled a lock of Therion’s hair around his finger and met his eyes, bashful all of a sudden, “would you...like to come with me?”

Therion’s mind ground to a complete halt.  For longer that he would like to admit, Therion had no thoughts at all, save for the echoes of Cyrus’s orbiting his mind.  He was utterly blank, staring into Cyrus’s eyes, waiting for the catch, or the punchline, or _something_ to void the offer.  It never came, and slowly one, singular, simple response came to be inside Therion’s consciousness, growing in size and volume until there wasn’t room for anything else—except, of course, Cyrus.

“Yes,” he said, and _Yes_ , he thought, “ _Yes_ ,” over and over, in between delighted kisses.  Therion imagined living in that big, messy house with Cyrus, and Cyrus imagined waking up every morning next to Therion, and both of them imagined a life with each other, and realised they had never wanted anything as much as they wanted this.

* * *

It took the group a few days to organise themselves with what they wanted to do next.  Now that all their journeys were over, they had no real reason to stay together any longer, and they all still had their own lives waiting for them beyond this odd little found family they had carved out for themselves.  Alfyn, Tressa, H’aanit and Ophilia intended to return to their homes, at least for a while, to spend time with their loved ones.  Olberic wanted to return to the village he called home as well, albeit with a former comrade-turned-enemy-turned-lover on his arm, and he seemed nervous about how people would react.  Primrose seemed intent on establishing a new life in Noblecourt, though whether she wanted to pick up what was left of the Azelhart estate or just live in peace remained to be seen.

“I shall go back to Atlasdam,” Cyrus announced, “with Therion.”

Therion choked.  Six pairs of eyes landed on him at the same time.  Seven, if he counted Linde, and Therion was sure he could feel the damned cat looking at him too.

“Called it,” said Primrose.

H’aanit smiled, and Linde purred.  Ophilia looked delighted.  Olberic looked...away, with dignity, as always.

“Aw, dang it,” Alfyn complained, “now I owe Tressa money.”

That made Therion find his voice.  “ _Tressa_!?”

Tressa just smirked and took her payment with great glee.  “Please.  It was obvious.  I just capitalised on a good opportunity.”

As his friends crowded him to offer congratulations (both teasing and sincere), Therion sunk into his scarf, wishing the ground would swallow him up.  It was slightly more bearable when Cyrus wound an arm around his waist and pulled him protectively close.  Plus, it was hard to be annoyed when Cyrus was so obviously giddy, the happiness and contentment rolling off him in thick and constant waves and a smile stretching his rosy cheeks.  So, with his mouth hidden beneath his scarf, Therion allowed himself a small smile, too.

* * *

The library of Atlasdam’s doors juddered on their hinges as a girl thundered in, almost tripping over herself with haste.  Ignoring the hiss from Mercedes and the disapproving looks from the other patrons, she scanned the rows of desks urgently until she eventually settled on one that contained a pile of books that bordered on the ridiculous in its scale.  Stepping closer, she called out, “Professor?  Professor?”

A hand emerged from the pile—or rather, she realised as she got closer, from _behind_ the pile, where a man sat almost eclipsed and waving distractedly.  “Over here, Therese.”

Therese sighed fondly and leaned over the table to regard Cyrus, eyeing the wavering pile with some concern.  “That stack of books seems to get bigger every time I see you.”

“And I’ll need twice again as many to have any hope of translating this ancient tome!”

Therese opened her mouth again, but a third party to their conversation cut her off, a previously unseen pale head popping up from the opposite side of the book pile: “Hey Cy, where’s that dictionary you were using?  This phrase looks familiar but I wanna check—oh, hey Therese.”

Therese’s face clouded over in an instant, an expression of disdain clearly aimed at the ratty little thief who was sidling up to Cyrus and smiling at her brightly (and smugly).  “Hello, Therion,” she greeted with disgustingly fake politeness.

“Certainly, dearest.” Cyrus’s voice dropped into softer tones as he rummaged for the correct book in the piles surrounding him and handed it to Therion.  “Have you made any progress?”

“Not really.  They all say a lot of the same thing.  These old guys sure like repeating themselves.”

Cyrus leaned across Therion to have a look at the book for himself, pressing the sides of their faces together lightly.  Absently, he turned to press his lips against Therion’s cheek.  “Well, you are as sharp as a tack, my love, so I’m certain you’ll make a breakthrough eventually.”

Clearly not party to this casual, intimate exchange, and evidently forgotten about as well, Therese stood awkward and indignant to the side, her hands bunched in her dress.  She had come to tell Cyrus that he was late for class, and now she had to witness this - this indecency!  In public!  Had they no shame!?

The door went again, in a similar fashion, but the young woman who strode in this time did not receive the same reproach that Therese had.  The employees and patrons alike paid her no mind as she glided between the desks with all the grace that her station demanded of her...even if she was only here to pick up her tardy teacher.

“You’re late, Professor!” Princess Mary called out, coming to a halt before the pile of books and the two men.  She stood threateningly with her hands on her hips.

Cyrus seemed to remember himself at her presence, and offered a sheepish smile of apology.  “Pray forgive me, Your Highness.  I’ll be right along.”

“Hey, Mary,” Therion greeted.

“Good day, Therion,” Mary returned with a small smile.  Therese quietly seethed.

Cyrus turned to Therion and kissed him, lingering on his lips longer than was strictly necessary, before standing to leave.  Therese seethed a little louder.

Therion grinned like a cait when Cyrus and Mary turned their backs, burrowing himself further into what Therese now recognised as Cyrus’s academy coat and going back to his books.  He very deliberately met Therese’s eyes over the top of the page.  It took every ounce of her dignity and self-control to turn away and not stamp her foot like a petulant child, especially when his snickers followed her all the way out.

* * *

Cyrus closed the door on the waning dusklight behind him as he stepped into his hallway, toeing out of his shoes and leaving them next to another pair, too small to belong to him, also abandoned by the door.  Squinting up the stairwell to the dimly lit landing, he strained his ears - and his soul - for a moment, then called out, “Therion, I’m home.”

“You’re late.”  Therion’s voice floated easily through from the sitting room, a tinge of irritation to the tone of it that did nothing to dampen the soft huff of neediness that lay beneath the words.  Cyrus smiled to himself and rounded into the room, where Therion sat huddled on the sofa, still swamped in his jacket and surrounded by a dozen cushions.

“I’m sorry, dearest,” he said, easily finding a space between all the cushions and slipping onto the sofa beside Therion.  Therion just as easily slipped into his arms, throwing aside the book he’d been reading to nuzzle at Cyrus’s jaw.  “I was late starting class, as you know, so I ran a little long to make up for it, and then I got rather carried away with going over some assignments…”

Therion’s nuzzling grew harsher until it was more like headbutting.  Cyrus very clearly heard, _I missed you,_ and in response he tilted Therion’s face up to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.  “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.  Did you already eat?”

Therion shook his head, still cradled in Cyrus’s hands.  Now this close to his love and being held and showered with gentle words and kisses, he radiated contentment, his faux annoyance long forgotten.

“Then I shall treat you to dinner to make up for it,” Cyrus announced.  “The new restaurant that opened in the town square is a favourite topic of conversation among my students at the moment.  Apparently, they have the most wonderful apple tart on the dessert menu.”

Therion’s eyes and thoughts lit up at once, and both his and Cyrus’s stomachs rumbled in sync.  But he didn’t move except to wriggle closer, settling comfortably into Cyrus’s side and resting his head against his shoulder.  “In a bit,” he mumbled.  Cyrus felt Therion’s now-familiar brand of soft and lazy clinginess creep into him, and he could do nothing but oblige.  “Tell me about what you taught at the academy today.”

“Well, actually, we were revisiting the basics of magical theory today - it’s always good to remind oneself of the foundations, after all - and we touched on a topic that will be most familiar to you.”

“Hmm?”  Therion’s eyes slid closed, but his mind remained alert with a spark of curiosity.

“The principles of magic,” Cyrus said, and felt Therion brighten in his arms with recognition.  Matching smiles eased onto both their faces as they recalled with lethargic comfort the events of several months prior that had brought them to this point, the simplest of magical principles that had triggered a much bigger discovery: the bond between their souls that now tied them together eternally.  “And I had a thought concerning them.  You asked me before if there was a third principle.”

“Yeah, and you said there wasn’t, because two was enough.”

“Well, I may have been mistaken.”  At that, Therion opened his eyes again, blinking emerald up at Cyrus with a silent question.  “Those who know impart knowledge to those who do not.  If something is wrong, those who know the answer correct it.”  Cyrus looked back at him, smiling that old, familiar little smile that was for Therion and Therion only.  “I believe you may have imparted new knowledge upon me, my wondrous little runelord, and corrected my oversights.”

Therion’s question grew in size, one pale eyebrow arching to go along with it.

“I believe we may have come across a new, third principle of magic,” Cyrus said.  “If the first is that like begets like; and the second is that things once in contact will continue to affect one another no matter the distance put between them; then perhaps the third is that this effect...this _bond_ ,” and now his smile grew into something clearly silly and unbearably fond, “once fostered, can never be broken, no matter what may come.”  He paused, for effect.  “Your thoughts, my love?”

Therion regarded him for a moment, with a head full of nothing but unconditional love and undying devotion.  And then he said, “That’s stupid,” and kissed him.

And as Cyrus laughed into the kiss, and Therion laughed back, something that was half magical and half not but wholly, completely perfect bubbled between them, entwining them together, forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **THE END.**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> just kidding it's not the end there's gonna be an epilogue and at least 2 (horny) side stories and potentially a sequel at some point
> 
> first point of note before i start getting mushy: the whole part that begins "therion had told cyrus about his past" is a reference to [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261548) _absolutely canonical in the timeline of this fic_ work by my goob fwiend, fellow cytheri lover and extremely talented writer sam. pwease read it because i lost my mind over it!!!
> 
> okay. where do i begin.  
> this was...never meant to be a multichap fic. it was meant to be a cute and stupid oneshot because i liked octopath and thought cyrus and therion were cute. and then. i met [sam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarExo). now i know i've thanked them in like every single chapter up to now, but i'm gonna do it again because this fic _literally would not exist as it does right now_ if not for them. i joked that they're my co-author but they basically are. i've spent more hours than i can count talking with them about this fic, and my ideas for it, and the _soulbond_ , and what i want to do next, and just cytheri in general, and they've been nothing but sweet and supportive and brilliant all the damn time, and i love them more than i can convey in the author's notes at the end of a fic about two idiots taking too long to kiss.
> 
> ANYWAY NOW I'M EMBARRASSED SO  
> i also have to thank everyone who's commented and kudos'd and bookmarked and just _read_ this fic, everyone who has spoken to me on twitter about it, everyone who has told me they're excited for the updates, everyone who has drawn fanart for it, and of course everyone from the cytheri discord for being super sweet and lovely (and hey hmu if you want an invite to the server!). all the support means more to me than you will ever know, especially since octopath is such a small fandom in the first place, and cytheri isn't as popular as some of the other ships, and i only started playing the damn game literally half a year after it came out. i'm so glad everyone enjoyed this fic so much, and i hope you all liked this finale too. now onto the epilogue, the side stories, and whatever cytheri fic i decide to write next!  
> and, as always, hmu on twitter @QueenNeehola to scream with me about cytheri in person!


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was an envelope, addressed in a delicate hand to “Cyrus & Therion Albright.”  
> Cyrus smiled at that. Therion tutted. “We aren’t even married yet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to domestic bliss.
> 
>  **this chapter contains _very very minute_ spoilers for the lead-up to the true final boss!** and also background h'aanit/primrose/ophilia because we need more lesbians. don't expect much in the way of plot, or length - this is utter fluffy, tangentially horny self-indulgence. enjoy!

_Cyrus is usually present in Therion’s dreams, and this time is no different.  If the scholar is well-kept and handsome in the waking world, then in Therion’s imagination he is a hundred, a thousand times more so: sculpted by the Gods themselves, moulded in the shape of Alephan’s ideals, the picture of loveliness and cleverness alike.  He wears a familiar smile of equal parts mischief and unsubtle implication that is for Therion’s eyes only as he leans in, their bodies hovering close together in the bright nothingness of the dreamscape, empty save for one another, and says,_

_“_ Interesting. _”_

_Therion blinks.  It’s one of Cyrus’s favourite words, and one that Therion hears frequently muttered under his breath or passing between their shared thoughts, but never usually in their dreams, and certainly not in the ones that involve them nude together._

_Cyrus continues speaking, his voice dropping off into a murmur and his eyes sliding away.  “_ I see...never thought of that before...great deal of sense… _”  He floats away from Therion, face adopting a new expression that is no less familiar - that of deep concentration and amused puzzlement.  His body that had been imagined in great detail from experience grows fuzzy around the edges, as if an outside interference is affecting Therion’s ability to keep a grasp on his fantasy._

_Because, Therion realises, that’s exactly what is happening._

* * *

 

Flinging his arm across to the other side of the bed, Therion’s knuckles met soft pillow rather than bony jaw and received in answer silence rather than the indignant squawk of a man so rudely awakened by his fiancé’s flailing.  That was the first hint that Cyrus was, indeed, already up.  The second hint was the incessant background noise of thoughts that didn’t belong in Therion’s head, amplified tenfold in volume without the blissful blanket of sleep muffling them any longer.

Therion groaned and rolled over, squinting at the clock past the harsh lines of sunlight that cut through the gap in the curtains.

 _Fifteen minutes after noon_ , a chirpy voice in his head helpfully confirmed, quieting the endless muttering for barely a second.  He groaned again.

* * *

“Finally awake?”  Cyrus turned in his chair at the same moment that Therion crossed the threshold into his study.  A smile played across his face as he took in the sight of his little thief, bleary-eyed and bed-headed and swamped in one of Cyrus’s old shirts, yet though he may have tried to hide it there was no hiding the mirthful bubbling of his emotions, tingling away tellingly at the back of Therion’s mind too.

“Well, you were thinking so loud I couldn’t sleep any longer.”

“You weren’t dreaming very quietly yourself,” Cyrus laughed.  “I’ll have you know you drove me perilously close to distraction.”

The implication behind the words was clear.  Therion felt himself urged closer, tugged across the room by that familiar instinct like Cyrus had wrapped a hand around his heart and pulled.  Their smiles mirrored one another as he slid into Cyrus’s lap - ( _a perfect fit, as always_ ) - feeling more awake by the second with every leisurely kiss that was pressed against his cheeks, his nose, his fluttering eyelids, settling with finality against his lips.  Cyrus always liked to kiss him slow and deep, like he was mapping every inch of his mouth, like he was trying to burn the imprint of Therion’s lips onto his own like a brand so he might never forget the feeling of them.

Therion grinned into the kiss when he felt Cyrus’s inner stream of consciousness start to stutter.  Memorised translations and nuggets of trivia about Gods and gates and ancient seals, half-formed mental notes on the development of their soulbond and how it had grown from a frantic, excitable new thing into a comforting back-and-forth exchange between them as familiar as their own heartbeats; everything that had been held static in Cyrus’s brilliant mind slowly began to come apart at the seams, gently pushed to one side as Therion parted the sea of his thoughts as easily as he parted his lips.

Cyrus sighed, a wave of contentment rushing outwards with the sound and enveloping Therion whole.  He returned it in kind, both of them pressing as close as possible through the cramped space and frustrating layers of clothes between them.

_That can easily be changed._

Therion snorted, pulling back enough to laugh against Cyrus’s mouth.  Cyrus’s hand toyed with the hem of the shirt Therion wore, fingertips twitching with intent along the edge of the oversized fabric where it spilled over his thighs.

“Easy, tiger,” Therion giggled, making absolutely no move to shift away.  “You’re giving in awfully easy to such a _perilous distraction_.”

“That’s because you _make_ it all too easy, my love.”  Cyrus’s wandering touch wandered its way underneath the shirt now, creeping up to knead at Therion’s hip.  The action was punctuated with a small line of kisses along Therion’s jaw and a barrage of delightfully promising mental imagery.

But there was, unfortunately, a more pressing matter to attend to than both of them falling back into bed, and Cyrus ceased his actions as soon as that thought passed from Therion into him.

His eyebrows raised in an endearing expression of concern.  “What is it?”

In response, Therion held up between them something that Cyrus had not at all noticed he’d been holding the entire time.  Easily distracted, indeed.  It was an envelope, addressed in a delicate hand to “Cyrus & Therion Albright.”

Cyrus smiled at that.  Therion tutted.  “We aren’t even married yet.”

“Very nearly though, dearest.  What is it, three weeks away now?”

“Twenty days.”  Warmth swelled from Cyrus so strongly that Therion couldn’t help but smile as well, even as he nudged his fiancé in a show of faux annoyance.  “Pay attention.”

He received a kiss on the cheek by way of apology that he didn't try quite hard enough to swat away.  “I’m sorry,” Cyrus said - not sorry at all - and turned his attention back to the envelope.  “Is that—”

“Prim’s handwriting, yeah.  I knew you’d forget to collect the mail, so I went out to check, and this was waiting for me.”

Cyrus brightened, which was some feat considering how pleased he had looked already.  “Oh, it’s been a while since Primrose wrote us.”

“Not since we told everyone we were getting married, right?”  Therion slid off of Cyrus’s lap and up onto his desk in what looked like a single movement.  He settled among the piles of papers and books like he was meant to be there, and swiped Cyrus’s letter opener from the small pot of stationery he kept.  “She really laid into you for taking so long to propose.”

Cyrus frowned, and Therion felt a small twist of embarrassment niggle at him.  “I hardly think a few months is too long, especially given the...special nature of our relationship.”

“You mean how you didn’t even get to ask before I said yes?”  Cyrus’s frown deepened.  “Come on, as if you were gonna be able to keep it secret.”  The embarrassment grew more prickly.  “I let you play out your whole fantasy proposal afterwards anyway.”

“It wasn’t the same,” Cyrus mumbled.

“I still said yes,” Therion argued.

Cyrus’s bristling softened at that, even if he did roll his eyes at Therion’s obvious smugness.  (How typical of Therion not to mention that he cried like a baby when Cyrus got down on one knee, though.)

Therion sliced the envelope open with a flourish and produced the letter from inside.  Cyrus shuffled closer in his chair and looked up, elbows resting on the table, as he began to read, with appropriate put-on dramatics:

“‘My dearest friends, Cyrus and Therion.  I hope this letter finds you well.  I apologise for not properly keeping in touch, but I have been rushed off my feet of late.  Following my father’s death and my own situation that took me out of Noblecourt, a lot of land fell out of my family’s hands, taken by thieves and opportunists for themselves—’ _Hey_.”  Therion pouted.

“I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that,” Cyrus said.

Therion huffed and read on, silently.  _‘Of course, I in no way mean honourable thieves of Therion’s class and calibre.’_

“See?” Cyrus said.

 _Shush,_ Therion thought.  “‘But that is beside the point.  My extended silence has been due to my reclamation of the aforementioned land that, now, rightfully belongs to me.  I never thought proving I am not dead could be this hard!

“‘But I mention all this because I have just recovered a darling little—’”He paused, re-reading what Primrose had just made him say out loud.  _‘Darling?’  Really?_   Cyrus chuckled.  Therion cleared his throat.  “‘...A _darling_ little property in the north of the Flatlands.  Peaceful, secluded, well-kept - perfect for a private honeymoon perhaps, if you are still searching.’”  Therion wrinkled his nose.  “The Flatlands?  We’re already in the Flatlands!  Aren’t honeymoons meant to be...exotic?”

Cyrus thought for a moment, then, “Secluded,” he repeated, emphatically, “ _private_.”  Some of the very pleasant mental imagery from before filtered into Therion’s head again.  Therion conceded he did have a point.  It took an incredible amount of self-control to turn his eyes back to the letter.

“She asks if we remember someone called Kit?”  Therion quirked an eyebrow, looking to Cyrus for any glimmer of recognition.  He was answered with a vague recollection of hearing a story from Primrose once, about a young man she had found collapsed in the harsh sands of the Sunlands, just after leaving Sunshade to begin her journey but before meeting any of the others.  Primrose, out of the goodness of her heart and despite her own tragic situation, had spared the poor boy some of her meagre supplies to replenish his energy and then wished him well on his own journey.  (Therion quietly wondered if she hadn’t embellished some of the details about her apparent unquestioning generosity.  Cyrus tutted.)  “Right.  Anyway, she says she met him again when she went back to Noblecourt.  Apparently he’s looking for his father and she wants to help?”

Cyrus nodded, putting a thoughtful hand to his chin.  “She must feel for this young man.  No longer able to see her own father again, she would like to assist in reuniting someone else with theirs.”

“Soft,” Therion scoffed, but they both knew he didn’t mean it.  “Dating Ophilia must be having an effect on her.”

 _Then I should like to see what effect her also dating H’aanit is having,_ Cyrus’s mind chimed in before he could rein in his thoughts, and Therion snorted, the two of them sharing a knowing look.  Not that either of them could ever make such jokes to Primrose’s face - Therion still (unfortunately) remembered the last time she had slapped him, and he had a feeling she’d be much more merciless were he to tease her about her girlfriends.

Primrose signed off the letter with a promise to keep them updated, and expressed excitement at attending their wedding, and at seeing them ‘married at last.’  Cyrus smiled, a little wistfully.

“It’s always so nice when our friends write,” he said.  _I miss them,_ he thought.

“We’ll see them all again at the wedding,” Therion reminded him, but he couldn’t smother the small pang of melancholy agreement that wriggled up out of his heart.  He loved living with Cyrus - he’d never been happier - but after months of travelling as such a large group, of developing such a feeling of genuine _family_ between these once strangers, it wasn’t easy to adjust to a quieter, domestic life.  Therion missed sparring with Olberic, sneaking stolen candy to Tressa, and offering secret scratches under Linde’s chin when no one was looking.

“Yes,” Cyrus said, quietly.  Solitude and heartache echoed around the room with that one word, and Therion immediately put the letter down and manoeuvred himself back into Cyrus’s lap to kiss the corner of his mouth.  Cyrus got like this sometimes: small and introspective and lonely, and through their soulbond Therion recognised it as a remnant of how he’d occasionally felt before he met everyone else, when he had desired companionship but couldn’t seem to find any.  Well, he didn’t have to feel lonely anymore.  Neither of them did.

“We can write her back later,” Therion said, nuzzling into Cyrus’s cheek, taking his hands and gently guiding them to feel along Therion’s thighs again.  “Right now, I think it’s time for my magic lesson, _Professor_.”  He tested the effectiveness of a cheeky smirk and felt Cyrus perk up in response.  “I want to practise making those little garlands of light magic in the bedroom again.”

That made Cyrus laugh.  It was still Therion’s favourite sound, and he thought it always would be.  “Therion,” he chided, “I can see into your head.  I know that’s not at all why you want me in the bedroom.”

“You didn’t say no.”

 _No, I did not,_ Cyrus thought, but couldn’t say, because he was already kissing Therion, their fingers already slotting together as easily as their minds, and hearts, and souls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **\- THE END -**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> ...until the sequel. (eyes emoji)
> 
> thank you so much for being here with me, and cyrus and therion, all this time. as always, follow me on twitter (@QueenNeehola) if you'd like to talk to me about cytheri! and i also help run a cytheri discord server, so if you want to join, please feel free to ask me for the invite link!
> 
> ( **here's the big special note for sam they asked for, don't read this if ur not sam (i'm kidding):**  
>  hewwo sam i love you so much!!!! i know i said this in the footnote of the last chapter but like. this fic literally wouldn't exist in this form without you. i couldn't have done this alone, i could never have pulled it off and certainly not to this level without you there every step of the way talking things out with me and supporting me. ur my muse!!!!!! you make my cytheri love shine so brightly and it's thanks to you that i have so many ideas still in my head to write. i have so much to thank you for i would literally run out of space in this textbox if i tried to list everything. you're an incredible person and you make me so happy and inspired and motivated and since we established from the first day we met that i'm not allowed to die for you, i will still just have to protect you with my life even harder than before!!!!! i wuv u, thank u for being in my life <3 )


End file.
